Siracusa and the rivers

With the Sicilian friends of the Sottocosta Association (http://sicilia.sottocosta.it/) I paddled the 5th of April morning from the town of Siracusa to the mouth of the Anapo river, paddling under the shadow of the trees along the beautiful canals. A warm wonderful day to start the spring paddling season...

New kayak school in Catania

The new Maremotu Kayak School base is finally open in Catania, at the Milone Mare Sport shop!
A beautiful launching little harbour right in front of the shop, perfect for the start of the excursions and courses. Plenty of fine equipment for kayaking, fishing, snorkeling and diving into the shop, where we run the theory lessons.
Very soon the innauguration...

Francesco and Peppe at the entrance of the shop / school.The street location of the shop /school.The veranda of the shop.
The launching spot into the little harbour of Ognina.

A little park along the coast

Very close to the Maremotu Sea Kayak School in Bruca, only 5 km east from our beach, a new park is going to be open in this summer.
There is an interesting biological environment, very similar to the north African coast. Some trees are endemic, like the small palms, others come from the South America, like the agave cactus.
With a bike is possible to follow the coastline along the improved paths of the park.

From the village of Sampieri, after a short dirt track there is a little beach, very nice place to land with a kayak.

Then the rocky shore rise again but a track delimited by the classic white stone walls gives the possibility to reach a little house that will be used as a museum.

The story of this house started with the Second World War, when the german troops buided it up to control the coast.

The dirt road continues towards the village of Cava D'Aliga, along the rim of the sea cliff, between palms and agave cacta.

A nice little anthropized strip of land, between the sea and cultivated fields, that is both nice to paddle along or cross with a bicicle or walking.

Extraordinary strong winds

This is an extraordinary hard winter, with heavy rain and winds.

In the last week here in the south of Sicily like in most part of Europe, the weather was all than good. Today a paddling was in my plan but the 35 knots blowing from the night before and reinforcing in the late morning prepared for me and my friends Peppe and Vincenzo a wild environment that discouraged all of us entering the water.The water was the color of the sand and big waves were running in two different directions. The beach was disappeared and some crushed wooden buildings parts were floating into the foamy liquid with all their nails and screws still attached on. Some seagulls were flying over the breakers looking for confused fishes and a Common sandpiper was looking for a sheltered spot between the exposed rocks.Also in Donnalucata, a village 10 km north of the Bruca beach, the conditions were pretty wild and after a hot coffee in a bar we just talked a little bit more about the weather, to agree that this (still blowing right now) is the strongest wind in the last ten years...

Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium

I was yesterday at the first day of the GGSKS in the "rescue, towing and incident managment" class, with Rob Avery and Bryant Burkhardt as coaches. The class was really interesting and we also had a lot of fun, practicing the rescues into the Yellow Bluff tidal race. All our training was done with the great view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the skylight of San Francisco, Angel Island, Alcatraz and the Berkeley Bridge.

In the evening the symposium organization offered very good pizzas and drinks just before the presentation from Nigel Dennis of his last expeditions in some really extreme environments, like the circumnavigation of remote South Georgia island. His pictures are beautiful!

After a short pause Sean Morley introduced me for the slide show of the "Around Highlands" expedition of May 2008. Despite my poor English I was able to tell the story of the 800 km vojage that I've done with Mauro and Tatiana all around Scotland, from Fort William to Inverness.

Thank you to Sean Morley, Jen Kleck and Matt Palmariello for the organization this beautiful symposium.Thank you to my friend Fran Sticha, for driving me around California with her car, helping me so much in reaching the beautiful symposium location (Sausalito and Horseshoe Cove) and back to my sister's home in Pescadero.

Through the Maveriks waves

At 8:30 Chris Manchester with his huge Dodge truck pick me up in front of the gate of the Redwood residence. He is the owner with Doug of the Half Moon Bay Kayak co. Their base is located right into the harbour of Half Moon Bay, at the southernmost part of the village.

The day is beautiful, with no clouds of fog. Chris give me the basic equipment, included a helmet, and guide me out of the harbour and through the remarkable waves just behind the famous surf spot called Maverik. One of this 2 meters rollers strike me on the way out and I’m very surprised by the power of this waves!

Keeping clear from Maverik we paddle for about 8 km, pretty far from the coast to avoid the surfing zone. Than we approach the cliff in a place called Table Rock for the presence of a flat rock right at the sea level and about one mile from the beach. The huge rollers of the Pacific Ocean are bended around this rock and crush over it. Chris explain me how to overcome the first line of rollers and we reach a very large soup zone behind Table Rock. Than we paddle forward looking for a suitable place to paddle back to the open sea, avoiding to be crushed on the second line of the surf. The head of the kelp algae rise out from a 10 meter deep sea floor while we manage to paddle our way back to the harbour. The waves from north west and the ebbing tide help us.
On the Maverik’s waves we meet a surfer and Chris suggest him to try at Table Rock (here some surfers have a speed boat that drag them right over the wave). Than we paddle across the narrow passage between the mushroom rock and the rollers over the reef to land on the beach on the north side of the harbour, in order to portage the kayaks quickly into the harbour.

Thank you Chris for the beautiful paddling day, my first one in 2009!

Doug and Chris in front of HMB Kayak Co.

The 2009 begins...

Rosanna makes a delicious dinner for the end of 2008: lentils soup, american turkey, potatoes and a marvelous chocolate cake. Also the little Paola waited for midnight and then we all sleeped as babies into the house deep into the forest...
For the first of 2009 we have a pancakes breakfast and then we drived to the Wilder Ranch park to walk with the children and eventually we had a pic-nic in a nice sunny afternoon.

In the 2nd me and Barbara drived (I should say that only Barbara drived because I forgot my driving licence in Italy) the car of Rosanna to Oakland and stopped at the California Canoe & Kayak shop, where we started to talk with the owner, Keith Miller, who called quickly Fran Sticha (in the picture from left: Keith, me, Fran). She escaped from her work and reached us in few minutes. I purchased some good equipment and then we had a marvelous lunch with crab, clam and mussel shells. Fran, who visited us in Sicily the last year and paddled a couple of hours with me, drived us to the world famous Berkley University in which she works.
With Barbara we had only one hour to visit the huge university but it was enough to have an idea. Then we drived through the Berkley bridge to San Francisco by night and reached Pescadero before dinner to embrace our little Paola.
An unforgettable day.

American Christmas

With my family we joined my sister in Pescadero, one hour south of San Francisco. She lives in a wooden house, deep into a sequoia forest, not far from the ocean and from Pigeon Point, famous for the lighthouse builded in 1872.

Despite actually I get a strong influenza, in the following days I hope to paddle in Half Moon Bay or under the Golden Gate bridge during the GG Sea Kayak Symposium...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody!

Learning control in the surf

8 December 2008.

A sweet night was followed by a perfect breakfast with milk, coffee, tea, marmelade, biscuits, bread, butter, orange juice and the magic add of the remains of some slices of the pizzas that Gabriele cooked for all of us (about 10 people).

The house of Andrea is a perfect lauching spot for kayaking. We need just to dress on our wet suit and put the kayaks on the water, grab the paddle and head for the mouth of the San Leonardo river.








Out of the river the beach was alive with a small surf that was perfect for a learning session into the breakers. Me and Peppe played and taked pictures while Tony was quickly learning how to brace in a small surf.










Andrea was hesitant and his choice was to repeat the wet exit, the paddle float rescue and T-rescue. Only the uncoming storm and the thinking of the cooked pasta let us paddle back into the river to join with Andrea's family and our friends for the lunch.

First post

The last excursion, december 7 2008, was very short but extremely exciting, with the paddling across the turbulent waters flowing from the San Leonardo river mouth to the sea, creating something similar to a tidal race. Here is a picture of me paddling against the current, towards the river.
Thank you to Gabriele Melita for this picture.

With our friends Mirella and Tony, plus Barbara, Andrea and Peppe (all them three are collaborators or members of our company) we paddled about 3 miles from the mouth of the San Leonardo River to the mouth of the Simeto River. The weather was beautiful with calm sea and a light westerly wind. Many birds watched in the banks and along the beach: little egret, cormorants, sea gulls and other unidentified species.