November 2006 - Canoeist Magazine

QuickTide South West
1 902830 33 4
QuickTide South East
1 902830 34.2
QuickTide North
1 902830 35 0
QT International Ltd, 19 Canynge Rd,
Bristol BS8 3JZ
220 x 150mm
£7.99 + P&P (free on more than one)
Once again the QuickTide cards are
available. Pick a date code from the table
inside, pick a colour code from the relevant
section of coast on the map, line up the dials
and you have the approximate tide times, not
perfect but better than getting the
calculations wrong. Tide times do vary from
the predictions, anyway, because of changes
to the atmospheric conditions.
The one significant change this year is to
the southwest card which now has an inset
for the whole of Ireland. This is a bit
squashed as far as the section between Dublin
and Wexford is concerned but that section
appears at larger scale on the main map. No
attempt is made to give details between
Portrush and Belfast Lough, either in the
inset here or on the northern map.
Even if you need to do the full calculations
to catch a particular tidal flow or slack it
would do no harm to run a quick check with
the cards to ensure you have not made a
major slip.
Fallen Pieces of the Moon
Robin Lloyd-Jones
Whittles Publishing, Dunbeath Mains
Cottages, Dunbeath, Caithness KW6
6EY
1 904445 31 4
2006
240 x 170mm
109 pages, paperback
£14.99
We have waited a long time for the
sequel to Argonauts of the Western Isles (Jan
90, p41). This time it is just a single trip,
a fairly exotic location (west Greenland)
but nothing too extreme. Robin is with a
holiday group, mostly North Americans,
undertaking a 240km tour over a couple of weeks.
It is a travel book as much as a sea kayak book. Indeed, it is a
philosopher’s book as it goes off at frequent tangents to probe
interesting ideas, often comparing and contrasting with Scottish
experience, including the fir-men of the north. Historic journeys and
low tech navigation methods echo and complement those in The
Barefoot Navigator and there is exploration of the area by Vikings and
later Europeans, Inuit kayaks and endless interesting facts which will
make it essential background reading for anyone going into the Arctic.
As before, he worries about whether describing one of the world’s
pristine places will encourage others to go there, leading to its
downfall, but concludes that it is better that others share the pleasure
than for it to be reserved for the elite few.
There are a limited number of colour and black and white pictures,
30
CANOEIST November 2006
some from other trips, particularly by Ken Nicol. There is humour of
the kind ‘From years of kayaking in Scotland I’d run foul of several
little known sub-clauses to Sod’s Law, like the one which decrees that
no matter how much you eat, there’s always something that won’t fit
back in your kayak when you come to repack it; or the one which
ensures that, when you need to consult your map, you’re bound to be
located on the fold.’
There is a priceless end to a section on naming places. ‘The river at
the head of Frobisher Bay, Hall named Cynthia Grinnel River.
Unfortunately, on returning home, he found that his friend’s daughter
was called Sylvia, not Cynthia.’
Statements are put devastatingly simply. ‘I love islands you can walk
right round in a short space of time... It is part of the lure of islands of
this size, I think, that they fit inside your heart.’
I appreciate his problems of scaling, a hunter stalking a grizzly for an
hour to discover it was a marmot or grassland pygmies not used to
extensive views who were frightened at how a swarm of flies grew to
be the size of buffaloes. I have paddled along a beach to a man who
turned out to be a gull.
If you are into sea kayaks or even the wider aspects of travel you will
find this a fascinating read with a succession of interesting ideas along
with the paddling narrative.
A Better Place to Play
Environment Agency, Rio House,
Waterside Drive, Aztec W,
Almondsbury, Bristol BS32 4UD
A4
19 pages, paperback
‘Is that it?’ was the comment of
one of the newspaper journalists
and TV crew members who had
been invited in by the EA some
years ago to witness the opening of
a launch platform they had
provided for canoeists at Blandford,
round the corner from dozens of
angling platforms. Much the same
could be said of the access
achievements trumpeted by this
book. This summary report by the
EA selects what they want from the
Brighton University report which selected what they wanted from this
study.
The opening sentence reads ‘This study has demonstrated that, in
the vast majority of cases, approaches to secure canoe access by
voluntary agreement are successful.’ It has done nothing of the sort. It
shows the inadequacy of what has been done this time and makes light
of all the constraints and failures.
‘Many previous attempts to negotiate agreements have foundered
through lack of clear processes, resources, strategic support and
guidance.’ The guidance we did have was the much vaunted books
successively by the NRA and EA on how to make agreements, not
mentioned here. Certainly there has been lack of strategic support
from the EA, not surprisingly, considering the attitudes of successive
chairmen, but the present financial support and DEFRA pressure on
participants are unlikely to continue in the future and it is open to
question whether the present agreements will survive for any time at
all.
The book has a list of requirements before access is obtained,
perhaps a surprise to the Scots who have access a thousand times better
than this, virtually without any of these.
Finally, the implication is that it will be the BCU’s fault if it all goes
wrong. After half a century of effort by their team of well over a
hundred negotiators and very little to show for it, it is hardly fair for
some well paid newcomer to pick off some easy bits of river, fail on
much more and say that canoeists have not been doing the job
properly.
It might be worth having a copy of this book to produce at a later
date with the previous ones on how dumbos like us could make access
agreements if only we knew how.