This weeks great value product is a kayak canoe helmet at only £18.50 this is a good buy. Take to the water with reassurance that you our safe with this helmet. With a quick release chin buckle if you get into trouble you can easily remove the helmet. With ear protector they have thought of every area that you will want protected. grab it now and keep yourself safe with this kayak canoe helmet.

Technorati Tags: Canoe, canoe centre, canoe helmet, canoeing, helmet, kayak, kayak helmet, kayak slalom, kayaking, Sea Kayaking, slalom, White Water

Yet again another great product Sprey Black 30 Litre Dry Sack at only £9.99  it is much cheaper than you will find it in the shops. 30l gives you plenty of space to keep all your important items dry. use it while your sailing kayaking or canoeing this bag offers great space for your items at the lowest price I have seen on the market.

Technorati Tags: 30l, 30l dry bag, 30l dry sack, dry sack, kayak, kayak slalom, kayaking, Sea Kayaking, slalom, sprey, sprey black 30 l dry bag, sprey black 30l dry sack, sprey black dry bag, sprey black dry sack, White Water

On Monday I got some new kit from Hiko, the Cinch Buoyancy Aid, so you have gone to the shop to buy a new BA and you see the cinch on the shelf, from a visal look its a very nice BA and for the price you think its to good to be true, well read on and find out what I thought of the cinch.

The first time I tried it on at home i was stunned as it seemed like it was not there. The Cinch is a light BA but very effective, it is designed for white water use as well as rescue work. However I decided to put it to the test doing some flat water play boat skills, as I had no white water to hand.

This BA is super light and allows you full movement of your arms, shoulders and waits. It comes with to very handy pockets at the front for the must have items, A added extra is to have a quick release system built into the BA. This is what is needed to do live baiting white water rescues. It also has a very handy knife buckle on the front of one of the pockets giving you nice easy access to that knife when you need it. The only down side is you have a flick knife there is no pocket to store it in.

With a zip up front the Cinch can be put on like a jacket or pulled over the head as it has straps at the side and on the top to tighten the Cinch to your body.

I rate this new Buoyancy aid 9/10

Below is a slideshow of the Cinch

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Technorati Tags: cagdeck, canoe slalom, canoeing, Cheshunt, kayak slalom, kayaking, Sea Kayaking, White Water

We got to St Lawrence Bay at about 2pm.  Before we got in the kayaks we needed to get changed and put all of the kit we wanted to take into the kayaks so that we had it all at the other end.  This required a lot of ramming of kit into the boats! We got on the water at about 4pm for a long trip ahead of us. The water was fairly smooth most of the way and we had the wind with us so it was quite a good trip.

However when we got to our planned destination we found that the dry hatches did not work too well so all of our stuff got very wet!  But we managed to set up a camp (no tents, just a tarp to sleep under Ray Mears style) and got a fire going so that we could get dinner on the go as soon as possible as it was then 8pm and we were all very hungry.

It rained quite a lot during the night and I am pleased that I had not put a groundsheet down as the others had (a tip I recalled from watching Ray Mears)- meaning that their bedrolls were in puddles of rain .

The next day we planned to leave at 6am but we were not up until 6am so by the time we had breakfast and packd up the camp and loaded the kayaks again we left at about 8am and set of for the 4 hour trip.  This time we were kayaking into the wind so the trip was not quite so easy and when we got back we were all very tired.  We loaded the kayaks on the trailer then realised we needed the stuff out of them so we took them all off the trailer and took all of our kit out before putting them back on the trailer.

We arrived back at the Herts Young Mariners Base at 2:45pm.

Technorati Tags: Herts Young Mariners Base, HYMB, kayak, kayaking, Sea Kayaking

We meet at HYMB at mid day to load the kayaks onto the trailers and then set off for St Lawrence Bay.  The plan is to get on the Blackwater and paddle (with all of our gear in the kayaks) to the most easterley point on Mersea Island.  That is approximately 16Km.

At Mersea Island we will set up camp for the night, make a fire to cook dinner and get an early night (well see!).

In the morning the plan is to get up early, pack up camp and paddle back with the tide to the cars.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Technorati Tags: HYMB, kayak, kayaking, Sea Kayaking