A perfect day

Last year I took part in my first open water swim triathlon - in Minehead, of all places.

The day before, Channel Events, a nonprofit outfit headed up by an enthusiastic team who just love sport and the outdoors and encouraging newcomers to get involved, laid on a practise day.

I was introduced to the brown, rather chilly Bristol Channel and with kind guidance and advice I was coaxed into the water and was swimming front crawl in my brand-new wetsuit, as if I’d been doing it all my life.

Dan Brice, who runs Channel Events, found out I was a sea kayaker and gave me the heads up on an event he runs every year.

‘Springboard into Summer’ is a chilled event, organised for reasonably experienced paddlers with guides to keep the show together. There were BBQs, guest speakers, camping and sea kayaking along the Dorset Coast. As soon as registration opened, I signed up, delighted that it did not clash with my work rota.

The date came around and I loaded my sea kayak onto the roof, packed the car full of camping kit and set off down to Burnbake campsite in Poole.

I was super excited and motivated by the promise of a circumnavigation of the Isle of Portland. I knew it was possible in a sea kayak, but having dived there for over 20 years, I was acutely aware of strong currents, short slack times and rough seas that Portland Bill was notorious for.

I decided to get back into the swing of sea kayaking on the Saturday by signing up for the Old Harry Rocks to Swanage trip. We were treated to calm, warm, balmy weather and the sea state was like glass. I had never seen Old Harry Rocks in such calm waters and as we lined our boats up on the sandy beach just along from the chain ferry to Poole, I knew we were in for a good day.

I was delighted to find I was paddling with Nienka. She was a triathlete and part of a small group of volunteers who gave me my confidence in my first wetsuited open water sea swim in Minehead the day before the triathlon there.

The sea was so calm we could play around in little rock hopping tunnels, go through arches and sea caves and enjoy a close up view that you definitely don’t get when you’re diving the area. We paddled across the bay to Swanage and stopped for an ice cream and lunch with a super friendly group of like-minded people, who loved the ocean, paddling and being outdoors.

We weaved our way back through the chalk stacks and archways, enjoying idyllic conditions. Once back at the beach, Nienka and I needed no persuading to get into our cozzies and go for a swim off the beach.

The water was chilly but it was wonderful to be swimming in clear, calm water in the UK and a rare treat for me. I spend half my year at sea but I’m not allowed to swim in it.

The evening was spent sitting around a campfire, enjoying a BBQ and some beers and a guest speaker talking about his long distance adventures.

The next morning I had signed up to the lap of Portland, as had pretty much everybody else!

We set off on the hour drive to Chesil beach and dragged our boats up onto the pebbles. A few of us had some fun seal launching onto the water and we set off on a slightly overcast morning towards the Bill.

It was a real privilege to get so close to the coastline, when normally I’m far out on a dive boat zooming past. The nooks and crannies, caverns, archways, crystal clear water with a green hue, were so pretty and inviting and I relished every moment of it.

The sun all the while was trying to appear and once round the bill, where a seal joined us at Pulpit Rock, it came out and gave us a glorious afternoon of warm sunshine and sparkly water.

We pulled into Church Ope Cove for lunch and basked in the sunshine. I couldn’t resist another swim in the glassy, clear sea. This really was the perfect day.

We continued the journey in glorious sunshine back through Portland harbour and were treated to the local dolphin putting on a display.

Time stood still and all our plans of getting away home at this time and that time were just forgotten. Days like this are becoming rarer and rarer and we all wanted to absorb every minute of it.

Sea kayaking is the most wonderful sport and allows people of all levels, ages and abilities to access beautiful parts of our coastline where larger craft cannot. It is a silent sport which causes no pollution to the environment and paddlers tend to be very environmentally aware.

Whether you are joining friends for the day, going on a solo adventure or a multi day camping trip, or even a daring long distance expedition, it really is the most wonderful way to see our winderful coast. As we passed Portland Bill a dive boat I knew passed us and not for one moment did I wish I was on it. My love of the ocean goes way beyond just diving in it and the purchase of my two Dagger Stratos boats are some of the best impulse buys I ever made!

I cannot thank Dan and his Channel Events volunteers enough for laying on such a great event. I’ve made new paddling friends and hope to be able to head out on the sea with them again in the near future.

Ghosts of Kernow

St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall

I love Cornwall. Who doesn’t?!

With a huge fishing community and the Ghost Fishing UK treasurer now residing there, it was a no-brainer to run our annual Ghost Fishing UK project out of Falmouth.

We booked 3 different boats over 6 days and lined up some public outreach events to capture the hearts of the holiday makers.

We kicked off at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary It was apt, as the SeaLife Trust were keen to fund our project and they also owned the seal sanctuary.

I was fortunate to interview Maz, one of the animal care team and she was explicit about how ghost gear affected and even killed many of the animals brought to the sanctuary's attention.

Working closely with the British Divers Marine Life Rescue, a handful of seals and pups each year would arrive at the sanctuary with horrific wounds from ghost gear which would remain the same size, caught around a limb or neck, while the seal continued to grow, causing awful deep lacerations.

We dived every day and I took a few days off diving to organise a social event where we invited every conservation and wildlife outfit in Cornwall to meet us, dine and drink with us and to introduce ourselves properly.

We were very warmly welcomed and everybody who came were amazed at how much ghost gear we had retrieved in such a short space of time.

We held public outreach events on Marazion beach and Maenporth beach just down the road from our campsite.

I managed to get a super early morning radio interview and Sophie our media lady got is into the local press.

We had our eye on Louis Matisse Nichols, otherwise known as Mini Beach Cleaner.

Louis, 11, has been beach cleaning since he was two years old, and started his famous Instagram account @minibeachcleaner two years ago.

His pictures on Instagram depict the reality of the state of our beaches. Based in Newlyn, Cornwall, Louis and his family clean up litter on almost a daily basis.

Louis tries his hand at diving

At this time of year, with the school break, bank holidays, and summer weather, the beaches are being wrecked by thoughtless tourists and holidaymakers who buy bodyboards, balls, spades, and lots of food, and discard it all on the beach for someone else to deal with.

That is where Mini Beach Cleaner aka Louis comes in. Using his wonderful creativity, Louis creates collages from the vast amounts of rubbish he collects on Cornish beaches. Louis says he has “a list in [his] mind of what [he’s] going to create” and he takes inspiration from “the animals, and farms”.

Louis send up a lift bag

When he was younger, Louis said to his parents that he didn’t need to go to school any longer, because being a bin-man meant no need for qualifications.

“He is incredibly creative” says his mum Nadine, who helps him with his beach cleans and acts as camera operator for his Instagram account. with chairman of ocean clean-up charity Ghost Fishing UK, for a taster session in how to remove deadly and toxic ghost fishing gear from the ocean.

We were so impressed with young Louis that we decided to invite him to join us.

Meeting at Porthkerris Dive Centre, Louis met Rich Walker, Chair of Ghost Fishing UK, to have his first ever scuba diving lesson. As a highly experienced dive instructor, Rich taught Louis how to use the breathing apparatus, hand signals for underwater communication, and most importantly how GFUK survey retrieve ghost gear.

Of course, no Ghost Fishing dive is so easy. Soon after Louis was getting his wetnotes out and surveying the net. He was then shown how to use the inflation nozzle to inflate a bright pink Halcyon Lift Bag and raise the net to the surface.

Insanely shy and probably with no concept of what a difference he is making - and will doubtless continue to make - to the our oceans, Louis didn't quite know what to say or do with himself afterwards so we took him out on the boat to watch the real Ghost Fishing divers in action and we even got to see a pod of dolphins who came out for the occasion.

We are told he did not stop talking about it for weeks afterwards!

The team wrapped up the week having recovered 540 kilos of lost ghost gear and we are extremely grateful to the SeaLife Trust for their support.

Ghost Fishing UK divers clean up the Epsilon

The monster net

“Oh Hello, this is the Guardian. Do you have a moment?”

I was only a few slurps into my morning coffee and my breakfast was about to go cold.

“Sure, how can I help?”

Volunteering for the charity Ghost Fishing UK always threatened to take over our lives and we can safely say it has done just that.

Chair Richard Walker, myself and third trustee and operations officer Fred Nunn, a long-standing friend of about 8 years, all work pretty much full time in addition to our real full time jobs to run this world leading charity.

We have the largest group of Ghost Fishing trained divers in the world, with 70 on our books and 120 on our waiting list. This is in addition to a large pool of surface volunteers who we can call on at any time for help.

It is an incredible achievement and now, as a completely independent charity we are free to do things our way - and the organisation has flourished.

When I first took a bunch of Bristol no.3 British Sub Aqua Club members on a group trip with my small business, WetWellies Caving - my first customers in fact when I started in 2012 - I had no idea it would lead to this!

Much of what we do is self-taught. The skillsets we have adopted over the 5 years of running Ghost Fishing UK have sent many of our brains bulging. Who knew we'd have to write KML files or navigate the .gov website minefields? Risk assessments, mission statements, method statements, articles, training courses, website...you name it!

Many of us are doing things we probably never would have done otherwise and it has been a true rollercoaster. Fred was terribly nervous in front of the camera - now he takes live BBC interviews in his stride.

Diver attaching lift bag to a net. Image: Christine Grosart

I had no press training but found myself having to learn the tough way and absorbing any education around the subject that I could.

This was one such occasion. I had written a press release using a template and some excellent educational materials from Class:PR and it went crazy!

After the Guardian, we started to see that a lot of news outlets were picking up our story.

Scuba divers from Plymouth had reported a very long, lost gill net on the popular and very beautiful Hand Deeps reef.

With a few reports and details in hand, we were pretty sure we could find it and deployed two Ghost Fishing UK teams onto the water. We were treated to a nice big hard boat, Seeker from In Deep Dive Centre and a professional crew who are totally on board with the charity.

One team located it and began surveying it.

Luckily, I was in that team so set about the net with my camera, documenting the trapped life in it.

The lost net at Hand Deeps. Photos: Christine Grosart/Ghost Fishing UK

Spider crabs, lobsters, fish and even urchins had got tangled up in the unforgiving gill net which had been fishing around the clock, indiscriminately.

Once surveyed, the team returned with knives, lift bags, stage bottles for lifting gas and a plan.

The net came free from the reef relatively easily and with no damage to the environment.

Once back on board the boat, the 2 hour ‘crab picking’ began.

Each trapped animal was documented according to species and whether it was dead or alive.

Luckily the sun was shining and the In Deep crew waited patiently as we dealt with each animal.

Over 100 animals were trapped in the net and around 80% were still alive and returned to the sea.

The net was measured at over 200 metres long (Fred is very keen on measuring and weighing things accurately) but its owner, not surprisingly, could not be found.

I put my new-found press release writing skills to the test and with a good story to tell, kept my fingers crossed.

BBC Spotlight did two great pieces on the story and we were then contacted by ITV and Channel 4, all keen to come out and film with us in the future.

Our social media lady, Dolly, also set about Instagram and Twitter and the levels of engagement were phenomenal.

It was a huge boost to the team after several months of being unable to dive, never mind head out on a mission and it was fantastic to get this net out of the sea so efficiently after a long time off.

Check out this fab news piece by the BBC!

Film about the project, created by Christine Grosart

Someone else's job - isn't it?

Published 2020

When Justin Hofman showed the world an image of a seahorse clinging to a plastic cotton bud, the world went into denial.

Some people tried to make excuses. They tried to claim it was fake, photoshopped, not real, a lie, an exaggeration.

People didn't want to believe it.

But everyone knew it was real. So real in fact, he took lots of images that day. He simply selected the best one.

“It’s a photo that I wish didn’t exist..." he said. Who can blame him?

Last week, in October 2020, England announced a ban on plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds.

But does it go far enough?

I organised my first beach clean in 2011 and was shocked that, even after a few hours, most people on the beach hadn't moved. There was so much plastic litter that it took us all day in the sweltering heat to remove it from 100 metres of beach.

When I set up my own business, WetWellies Caving, way back in 2012, I promised from the outset that my business would be as green and environmentally friendly as it could be.

We did all our bookings electronically or by phone - we never posted out paper or spammy leaflets. We re-used drinks pouches and reduce single use plastics as much as possible. We encouraged our cavers to pick up litter both underground and on the way to and from the caves.

But given that WetWellies pretty much worked from home, I thought I'd share with you a few things I do about the house to make a small difference.

I use biodegradeable cotton buds, recycled and plastic free loo roll from Who Gives a Crap and hair products from Soul and Soap.

I buy kitchen bin liners and compost bin liners from BigGreenSmile.com. These are completely compostable and strong enough to take our household waste and leftovers.

I recycle anything that the local council will take away and run anything else up to the local recycling depot. A handy kitchen basket acts as a collecting vessel before we sort it into the recycling buckets outside.

I have lots of re-usable 'bags for life' and try to avoid single use plastic bags.

I have re-fillable bottles of ecover washing up liquid and every couple of months I get re-fills at the local organic supermarket in Castle Cary.

Buying veg at the supermarket is almost impossible without bringing home single use plastic. I try to pick up unwrapped vegetables and this I made easier by using our farm shop 1 mile away, or even better the Friday veg Market in Shepton Mallet.. Tesco already got rid of their own brand of plastic cotton buds and replaced with paper.

Sadly, many types still come in single use plastic wrapping. Another example of a gesture that only goes half way.

A few years ago I was given 'The Self Sufficient-ish Bible' which is full of great ideas to try to do things in a better way for the environment without having to go to extremes. It offers realistic and achievable small changes for normal, busy people.

And finally, I compost any food scraps and offcuts which go into a fully compostable bag which we have trained the local recycling crew to take as well.

I sat down and worked out, roughly, how much single use plastic use I have used in my lifetime.

It is extremely difficult to work out, so I had a go at just working out, approximately, how many shampoo bottles I have got through as an adult.

I moved away from home and lived independently from the age of 16, so I thought I'd start there.

I have always had long hair and get through about one bottle of shampoo every 3 weeks. So:

I used about 17 shampoo bottles a year.

That's 408 single use bottles of shampoo since I was 16.

ONLY shampoo. You can double that figure for conditioner bottles.

Since 2018 I have been using shampoo and conditioner bars with no plastic packaging whatsoever. The downside is that they are more expensive and this is a problem. Single use plastic is cheap. Plastic free products have a low production volume, lower demand and thus, are dearer.

We need to make non plastic options affordable and even cheaper, before we can get everyone onboard with ditching single use plastic.

Now, I work offshore in the oil and gas industry - but before you shout 'hypocrite' from the rooftops, I should point out that I am a medic. Everyone needs a medic and, frankly, the oil and gas industry is not going to cease overnight just because Christine the medic chose a dfferent job.

I'm a Paramedic, actually and also an offshore diver medic. I look after divers in sat chambers and quite often their jobs are repairing leaks, investigating any break in containment and often making oil and gas rigs last longer so that the fulfill their worth before newer ones are built.

The vessel I work on has a very low carbon footprint and everything gets recycled. Nothing gets dumped in the sea - the fines are horrendous and the company looks bad. We even make water on board and there are recycling separation bins everywhere.

Working offshore does give me an insight into an industry not everyone has access to, plus it gave me enough spare time to support my voluntary work as trustee, secretary, photographer, instructor and general dogsbody for the ocean clean up charity, Ghost Fishing UK.

Even though my background is in medicine, I do enjoy learning about the oceans and educating myself more and more about the threats to our blue planet.

I've enjoyed some excellent (and mostly free) online learning to keep the grey matter ticking over.

Why not give it a go?

For more information, check out the Marine Conservation Society's magazine. You can join for only £3.50 a month to help protect our oceans.

There are loads of free resources, educational materials, ideas and help and you can even become a beach clean champion!

Sea Doggos

Tag! You’re it!

There was a sharp tug on my fin and I turned around to catch the cheeky seal diving off into the distance, pretending it wasn’t him.

This never-ending game of ‘tag’ is a favourite of the seals in the Farne Islands, Northumberland.

Around August time they get quite playful. Global Underwater Explorers UK had a group trip going and on this rare occasion, Rich and I were both free.

I needed to keep my skills up with my rebreather so took it along with me, interested to see what the seals made of the bubbleless, silent machine.

After two days of boat diving, Rich took me on a shore dive from St Abbs. I had never dived here and seized the opportunity to do some SeaSearch recording, something that had completely transformed by sea diving.

The underwater scenery was simply stunning.

There were kelp forests and steep gulleys, adorned with fluffy dead men’s fingers and corals.

Nosey, territorial Ballan Wrasse pestered us and we dived through the most beautiful natural rock archway.

We had lunch in a café in the harbour and dive 2 was equally as stunning. British sea diving on a good day is as good as anywhere in Europe and I enjoyed filming with the new Paralenz Dive Camera.

Pretty Persier

The lock down hokey cokey was starting to take its toll this summer, I’m sure, for all of us.

I had booked some blue shark snorkelling with Indeep as a ‘salvage the summer’ attempt but the weather ruined it and we couldn’t go.

So, with Rich around for a couple of days we made a last-minute booking on a couple of days diving down in Plymouth.

I decided to take my KISS rebreather because I hadn’t taken it in the sea much and, well, I should really. It was only ever bought for caves, but I decided to expand my horizons.

To make life even more awkward for myself I threw the DSLR in as well and we decided to camp using my new van awning.

Of course, it rained. Non-stop. The BBQ coals that we picked up were damp and after 2 hours of trying to make fire (all the pubs were full, before you ask…) Rich finally managed a decent meal. It was cold and wet and pretty miserable. I was enormously grateful for my Fourth Element poncho which made putting up a tent in the rain significantly more bearable.

We rocked up at Indeep who provided the usual excellent service in gas and boats. We headed out to a wreck I’d never been to before - le Poulmic. Very small but teeming with life. The weather topside was what we call ‘lumpy’ and we were grateful to be beneath the waves rather than on the boat.

Christine diving the Persier

In the afternoon it was a classic bailout to the James Egan Layne. Each time I dive this wreck (mostly pulling ghost gear off it, to be fair) it looks different. Rich had a great time with his camera while I struggled with not-very-good macro.

After a damp night in the van, the weather had improved greatly, and we headed out to the wreck of the Persier. I was excited as I’d never dived it before, and the visibility looked promising.

I gave myself a break and took the Paralenz dive camera. I always find shooting video way easier than images!

The wreck was stunning. We could hardly see it for fish. Great for critter nerds like me but not so great for wreck photographers like Rich, who spent much of his time shooing them away!

The wreck is adorned with pink sea fans and made for great wide-angle shots with Rich’s canon DSLR and new Easydive housing.

Christine diving the Glen Strathallen

In the afternoon, we dived the remains of the Glen Strathallen.

In typical style, Rich and I got distracted by a lost creel that was still catching. He set about freeing the resident spider crab while I filmed. We just can’t help ourselves!

Gettin' down with the Beeb

The next stop on my whistle stop tour of the North Sea was an FPSO (Floating Production Storage Offload) a kind of production oil tanker.

It was my first shot at ‘Vantage’ as well as the medic role. I can safely say that helicopter admin is rather stressful and I was grateful to the permanent medic on board for a decent handover.

Vantage is an offshore tracking system and used for managing flights, sometimes 2 or 3 a day on the Gryphon Alpha. I was up to my eyeballs in paperwork but it was nice having a new string to my bow.

“Hurry up” I thought, impatiently.

I was squashed up against the window seat of a Bristow AW139 helicopter, which had decided to take a tour of Aberdeen airport before finally allowing us to disembark.

North Sea Taxi

I struggled out of my life jacket, kicked off my flight suit and switched on my mobile phone, which hadn’t worked for the last three weeks offshore.

I was about to demand a taxi when a text message pinged:

“Hi, it’s Mark from the One Show. Are you free for a call?”

I flew home to Bristol, threw all my dive kit in the van and drove straight down to Falmouth where the Ghost Fishing UK team were already in the swing of surveying large lost nets on the wreck of the Epsilon.

The BBC was keen to meet Ghost Fishing UK and film our work for a feature.

After a pleasant evening meal with the crew and the divers, the next morning we set about loading the boat ready to recover a big trawl net, intermingled with monofilament.

Preparing for filming with teh One Show; Lucy Siegle, Mark the producer and Christine

Lucy Siegle was the presenter of the One Show and wanted to interview me.

I’m far more comfortable behind the camera, doing the interviews myself and I picked up several tips from the professionals as we went.

First, the “walking to the camera shot”. Lucy and I walked painfully slowly along the 3 foot wide jetty towards the camera, Lucy asking me open questions with me trying to answer them without looking where I was going.

If I fell in, I thought, not only would the whole thing be ruined but our team of divers would probably be hospitalised with laughter...

An hour later, the producer asked us for a “foot shot”.

Lucy and I stared at our feet in horror! We weren’t dressed for this! Who wants to look at our feet?!

Neither of us were wearing our Jimmy Choos! I had my scabby old work trainers on and Lucy had dressed for comfort too. Oh no...

So there we were, doing an impression of the opening credits to “The Bill” (showing my age) along the jetty while our team let out audible yawns from the boat. They were getting sunburnt and impatient.

We wrapped up as the soundman recorded background noise (who knew that was a thing?) and we jumped on board Gary Fox’s boat from Dive Action, Cornwall.

Sharing a joke with Lucy Siegle and the sound lady

We always charter hard boats as they can take more divers, making us more effective and efficient and for media jobs, we often like to hire out fishing boats or a second dive boat to assist with recovering the nets. Anglo Dawn skipper Andy Howell kindly stepped up to offer a vessel for the BBC film crew and also for landing the nets we recovered.

Mark, the director, had an ambitious idea to splice the underwater footage of the lift bags underwater and then breaching the surface with the net, by using a drone overhead. The beauty of working with Ghost Fishing divers is that they are meticulous in their planning and it was actually quite easy to schedule the shot.

“The bags will be coming up 40 minutes after the divers jump”.

The crew looked at us with some skepticism but, true to our word, at 40 minutes the drone was up in the air and took a fantastic aerial shot of all the bags and the filthy brown water stain from the nets breaching the surface.

Sharing a joke with Lucy Siegle from the One Show

Once back on the boat, Fred, John and I jumped across to Anglo Dawn to help pull the huge tangle of nets on board and the camera crew got stuck in filming and recording everything they could. I was most impressed with the director as he rolled his sleeves up and grabbed the net and started helping to haul it in.

Lucy Siegle seized the opportunity for a ‘on the fly’ interview as we plucked trapped animals from the net.

She squatted down at the back of the boat, which was starting to get a bit lively as we rocked side to side with the waves.

She began asking me questions about the nets, the animals we were releasing and the problem the plastic nets would cause if left in the ocean.

“So, Christine, tell me what it feels like to bring up one of these nets”

I began answering when she suddenly sprang to her feet, staggered over to the side of the boat and began feeding the fish!

Perplexed, we waited a moment and she came back, wiped her mouth and carried on with the interview as if nothing had happened!

Now that’s a professional!

Lucy was afforded the role of releasing an edible crab back into the sea and this made her day.

We headed in to Falmouth marina to undergo the painstaking task of unloading the net, all the kit and wheeling it back to our cars and Fred’s trailer.

The camera crew wanted shots of us unloading the huge, heavy nets and we set about passing it between half a dozen of us over the side of the boat and onto the jetty.

It was super heavy, stank and got caught on everything.

We had just about finished when the camera guy said “Awesome guys....I don’t suppose you could just do that again?”

We all looked at each other and in unison replied, “No!”

The final cut on the BBC One Show

Kerensa Kernow

Who doesn’t love Cornwall?

Stunning scenery, wild places, mysterious history and turquoise seas.

North Cornwall coast. Image: Christine Grosart

I’ve been visiting Cornwall ever since I was child, including one infamous family caravan holiday where we had to take the kitten, Whiskey, along too as he was too young for his jabs and couldn’t go into a cattery...

We’d stop on the A38 to let him have a wee in his litter tray (on a lead!) and had to hide him in the Sennen caravan when the campsite man came round for his money.

Animals weren’t allowed!

During the Covid-19 crisis earlier in the year we stayed away from all tourist traps and apart from work, didn’t venture further than our home on Mendip.

It wasn’t fair to Cornwall for people to descend en mass, so we waited until the county was happily open and ready for business.

We packed Agnetha to be as independent as possible and booked some very nice campsites in Looe, Fowey and Porthkerris.

A month of lockdown when I returned from Atlantis, meant working on my new wheels.

Agnetha is my Citreon Spacetourer. With 6 rear seats removed and a wet floor out in, she has been fitted out with a removable rock 'n roll bed, curtains and now the most important thing in covid times: A Porta potty!

Now then, skip this part if you already know about campervan toilets....

A porta potty is possibly the best thing I have ever invested in. Make sure you get the green toilet chem as it is better for the environment and smells better....

Read the instructions on how to use it and NEVER put wetwipes down the porta potty (the same way you would NEVER put them down an actual toilet).

Keep a plentiful supply of bog rolls in the car (I use beautifully wrapped ones from Whogivesacrap)

Agnetha the spacetourer

These were areas I didn’t normally frequent, typically gravitating towards places I knew well such as Marazion, Penzance and The Lizard.

This was a little adventure. We packed our hiking gear, recreational diving kit and of course, our cameras.

We had a decent walk to Looe and swung by the extremely pretty fishing village of Polperro.

We treated ourselves to a little shore dive at Talland Bay with a convenient car park and a café that sold prosecco.

After an hour or so I scared Rich as he lost me. I was in 1 metre of water eking out the last scraps of gas, taking photos of snails… There is probably a reason why underwater photographers often dive solo!

After a couple of nights we moved house and set up at a campsite near Fowey. I’d never been there and found a lovely walk in glorious weather, from the app iwalk cornwall. The scenery was stunning, the water sparkling and we wrapped up a perfect day at the Old Ferry Inn, with Cornish sardines and dressed crab overlooking the Fowey estuary.

I also highly recommend a visit to the Fowey River Gallery which is full of stunning artwork, plus a trip around to Readymoney cove, close to St Catherine’s Castle.

An absolute godsend was my decision to buy a proper camping cooker - rather than just a single burner.

With two of us, we needed a decent cooker and went with the trusted brand campinggaz and it didn't disappoint. It also took up very little space.

I decided that kayaks were the best way to explore the estuary, so we hired some for the day and set off up the river, paddling in amongst the yachts and exploring the boat graveyard.

Rich was surprised to come across Loyal Watcher, now used for commercial diver training. It was a vessel he was very familiar with when he was tech diving in the late 90s, when she was then owned by Richie Stevenson.

We wrapped up the day in Jo Downs Handmade Glass shop. I left with a mirror that I’d had my eye on for about a decade! I’m a huge fan of her work and I was very proud to trot off down Fowey high street with my prize in hand!

We had been to Porthkerris before, albeit only for diving with Ghost Fishing UK. We managed to set up in a nice spot on the cliff edge overlooking the beach and had super easy access for diving and the facilities.

St Michael’s mount, Marazion, Cornwall. Image: Christine Grosart

I set about the local dive spot with underwater camera in tow. I was a little disappointed by the lack of wildlife and the poor visibility. I think the latter was caused by other divers, but we couldn’t find an explanation for the critters - there was barely anything there!

Then we went on a night dive.

In typical fashion, the cool stuff came right at the end. A super cool and very friendly cuttle fish was hunting right in front of us, using our video lights to home in on his prey.

Once done, he investigated our Paralenz which made for some pretty awesome viewing.

I was sad to leave Cornwall early and head back offshore, but work is work and it was a welcome short break in the sun.

Offshore Life - A Man's World?

In 2016 I made the decision to leave the NHS full time and embark on an ambition I'd long held to work offshore.

I can't really tell you why I found it appealing. I guess I just like to do cool stuff that not many people get to do. And as a side effect, stuff that not many women do.

How I travel to work

When I was a teenager I remember a tv series called 'Roughnecks'.

It was a bit cringey but at the time I thought it looked definitely interesting. While I was still working in horse racing, I started studying Geosciences with the Open University and started exploring different work avenues. That all got put aside though when I got into the ambulance service, so now I'm still offshore but in a different role - Offshore Medic.

The North Sea

The number of women working offshore in the energy industry is still pitifully low - just 4%. It's quite normal for me to be the only woman on a vessel or platform and as a rule, out of 100 people on board, only 4 or 5 will be women and most of those will be in admin or domestic roles.

I have met a couple of women who had slightly fancier roles, such as ROV pilot Charlotte Cunningham to took some awesome images of the Normand Clipper with her drone. And I have encountered project engineers and roughnecks who are women. There are several female offshore medics but this seems to be the only role where numbers are on the increase.

I have never encountered any issues offshore being female and it is actually a very pleasant, uncomplicated environment.

Dive Support Vessel: Bibby Polaris

Towards the end of 2017 I got the job I had wanted for a long while - dive medic on a DSV, Bibby Polaris.

This involved doing medicals for saturation divers who lived in dive chambers for up to a month at a time and spent most of that time at depths between 90 and 110 metres.

It takes them around 4 days to come back to ambient pressure again and as well as looking after the vessel crew and contractors, I'm also there to manage any problems the divers may have.

Early this year (2018) I was keen to get onto a production platform. My opportunity came in March when I was sent to Norwich (no change out of a 6 hour drive) to fly to the Indefatigable field and join the 23 Alpha gas production platform. It was my first flight in an offshore helicopter and I felt a real knot in my stomach and an overwhelming sense of excitement, relief, who knows...but it had been my ambition for so long and now here I was, all dressed up in my survival suit and life jacket with EBS (Emergency Breathing System) walking out in among a full compliment of guys (no girls on this flight) and stepping onto the chopper.

The sea was like glass and was sparkling. We flew in glorious sunshine over huge wind farms and the various vessels down below left white streaks of wake behind them.

I strained to see out of the window to see the platform come into view.

Nope, not ours....next one.... The helicopters often do several pick ups from neighbouring platforms so I had to wait for our turn.

The chopper slows down to a crawl on the approach and the helideck crew surround the helicopter ready to pounce if something goes wrong. I located my bags and an old gentleman kindly took one of them down the stairs for me. I thought this was just a bit of old fashioned chivalry and didn't mind...until I realised I was the only one with two bags! I had to keep one hand free for the hand rail so it was good to know I was an equal!

I loved my time on Inde 23A and the guys had been on there a long time and were super friendly and helpful.

It was a bit of an HSE role as well as medical so I muddled through what I could. On my last day the OIM (platform boss) sprang an 'Emergency' drill on us and myself and the first aid and fire team were heading over to the middle platform to deal with an injury following a gas leak.

It was good fun and I was sad to leave.

I appeared to be up and running and as my ambulance shifts got fewer and fewer, my job opportunities offshore increased. I did a short stint on a 'Walk to Work' vessel Island Condor, which acted as accommodation for several platforms in the south North Sea.

I then headed off on a horse riding holiday in Morocco to take a well earned break, before boarding the Normand Clipper and then heading to the platform 'Brae Bravo' for Marathon Oil.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the offshore life and am always amazed at how different the environmental concerns are now to several decades ago. The oil and gas industry is now making hug efforts to be as clean as possible, many with 'zero discharge' policies and many of the vessels I have been on have been designated the some of the cleanest in the world.

I was fascinated when watching the ROV tvs at the amount of sea life homing in on the wells and the rig jackets. on one platform, the jacket (steel support legs) had 30 years worth of hard coral growth and was basically now a coral reef. The life down there was incredible.

Claymore Alpha platform and my current workplace, Seven Kestrel for Subsea 7.

As we speak, I am on board the well known Claymore platform in the North Sea, having just finished a week on a Semi-Submersible exploration vessel. The food is fantastic and I'm made to feel very welcome. I'm in the gym every day which is something I just couldn't do when I was working in excess of 12 hour shifts on the ambulances.

Not long now til I'm back on dry land and back in the water! If that makes sense....

It's been a busy summer and there is still plenty on my to do list. Stay tuned for more, including our most recent cave diving exploration.

The Woman from Atlantis

Work over winter had been somewhat sporadic. I was enjoying the freedom of locum work, being able to wherever, whenever I pleased but financially it was tough.

In May I was offered a trip on the Boka Atlantis. It was a huge dive vessel and I was back in my comfort zone, as medical cover for not only the crew but the divers in saturation too.

They were diving and living at depths around 100 metres. When not doing ‘bell runs’ they live in cramped conditions in the saturation chambers and their every move is monitored. Food is ‘blown in’ through the hatch and even the toilets are flushed for them by the Life Support Supervisors.

They breathe high percentages of helium in a mix called heliox and talking to them on the comms is like communicating with a very high-pitched Donald Duck.

Luckily, I speak helium so communicating with them is fairly straightforward.

Things can manifest quickly at over 10 atmospheres of pressure and their health and hygiene is taken very seriously.

I do their medicals before they go into the chamber for up to 28 days and again when they come out to make sure all is well.

In addition to this, I manage the day to day running of the hospital on board and run training sessions weekly for both the first aid team and the divers covering all sorts from cannulation, Advanced Life Support and catheterisation to basic first aid and stretcher drills for the marine crew.

It is a busy friendly vessel and it looked like I would be spending the foreseeable future on board.

To get a feel for what it is like for divers on board a DSV (Diving Support Vessel) the documentary film 'Last Breath' is a true story about a saturation diver's brush with death when it all went a bit wrong on the DSV Topaz. Available now on Netflix.

Some of the guys in the film now work on the Atlantis and it really does bring it home that this is a serious game we are in out there.

Beautiful Brighton

Brighton isn't a diving region that I'm familiar with.

It's a bit of a drive from Somerset and the currents and visibility can be even worse than the more westerly reaches of the English Channel.

I knew there was good diving to be had there, I had just never felt motivated to visit.

All that changed when Ghost Fishing UK received dozens of reports from keen and active divers in the region. Furthermore, we were approached by Sussex Wildlife Trust to partake in their 'Wild Coat Sussex' project which centred around Brighton.

Ghost Fishing UK ran several missions over the summer surveying and recovering mostly lost nets but also plenty of lost crab pots as well. Immensely supportive of the project was Steve Johnson of Channel Diver. Before the team had even arrived, he'd made up some banners for his boat in support of Ghost Fishing UK and Sussex Wildlife Trust. We were truly humbled.

It is so important to support the diving industry who we rely on to keep divers diving and reporting this lost ghost gear.

To date, Ghost Fishing UK has chartered 26 different dive boats around the UK across 142 survey, recovery and training dives.

Even more exciting was that a local fishing trawler heard we were in the area and offered to come and help pull in the lost gear, something we were extremely grateful for.

Ghost Fishing UK has always wanted to work WITH the fishermen on the issue of lost gear. We have never believed that they want to lose it and therefore, pointing the finger of blame in their direction is, well, pointless.

I was on camera duty again and thoroughly enjoyed getting some underwater images of the action. It was a pleasure to dive with Kerry and James as they set about cutting up and removing some nasty, snaggy nets on a wreck in about 20 metres of water.

It was a long day and as I drove up to Aberdeen the very next day for work, I parked up in my van and sat up until midnight bashing out a press release for the next morning. It was time and effort well spent as almost every news outlet in the South East picked it up and we were invited for further interviews, news pieces and every journalist in Brighton wanted to come out on the boat with us!

It was great to get out of the admin/trustee/dogsbody chair and get into the water with my camera, doing what I love.

Manic Media

I was delighted to get a call much sooner than expected, to join my second home the DSV Boka Atlantis, for an emergency job in the North sea.

A pipeline had liberated itself from the seabed so we were off out to fix it with our hotshot team of sat divers (cue the A-Team theme tune…)

Coming home from weeks away offshore is like Christmas every time – there is always a bunch of parcels you forgot you ordered waiting for you.

One such parcel was particularly exciting for me. Owing to the charity work I do for Ghost Fishing UK and original cave exploration, which is my life’s passion, Santi Drysuits offered me an ambassadorship.

Christine in her new Santi Drysuit. Images by Marcus Blatchford at Vobster Quay

It is an honour to be asked by a top end drysuit manufacturer who truly believe in supporting our charity and supporting those volunteers not just at the sharp end but who graft so hard for no remuneration behind the scenes.

The media have been busy with our charity and the BBC Women’s Hour Power List 2020 has kept on following me and they finally persevered and caught up with me when I got home for an interview.

You can listen in here:

BBC Women's Hour - Christine Grosart

Not long after, BBC South West nabbed me for a piece about volunteers who look after our southern coastline.

A slightly stranger one was being asked to talk about working offshore for Woman and Home magazine. They were quite insistent that the interviewee should be 40 or older and never appeared in a similar magazine. I was quite sure that this was not my genre but sadly even more sure that I had, indeed, hit 40. This milestone was a total anti-climax and due to Covid had been spent on the oil rig, Dunlin.

You can read the full article online here: Woman and Home - Women at Sea

I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday as it seemed pointless. I guess the party will have to wait a while.

In the run up to my first ‘live’ ghost fishing mission of the season, I jumped into our local quarry with photographer Marcus Blatchford and fellow Cave Diving Group member Connor Roe.

I hadn’t seen Connor since his efforts in Thailand assisting with the underwater rescue of the Wild Boars football team.

By the way, if you want to read all about it from the horse’s mouth, I highly recommend this read from one of the guys who found them. It’s probably the only truthful account of the whole affair you will read.

I’m proud to know both Rick and Connor, Rick much better over the years and they are the most down to earth people you could ever meet.

Connor Roe, with one of his less fortunate victims…

Photo: Christine Grosart

We had a lot of fun with scooters and cameras and I got to try out my new Paralenz Vaquita. I had a good shakedown with my DSLR wide angle underwater set up in preparation for the Brighton Ghost Fishing UK mission where I hoped to bring back some images of the action.

Underwater photography: Expensive, difficult and time consuming!

Christine in her new Santi Drysuit. Images by Marcus Blatchford at Vobster Quay

Christine in her new Santi Drysuit. Images by Marcus Blatchford at Vobster Quay

"Did you see them?"

Winners of the 2022 Fishing News Awards

The drive from Oban to Peterhead is a pain. Let me explain.

I’m a trustee of the charity Ghost Fishing UK and we were surprised and delighted to have been nominated for the Fishing News Awards in Aberdeen that week.

Not one to turn down a posh party, I booked the time off work and had a few days spare in Scotland beforehand.

Seizing the opportunity, I booked my VHF short range radio exam in Peterhead sailing academy while I was in the area. It had been a long time coming as the exam centres were slow to re-open after covid.

With that passed and out of the way, I found myself in Peterhead at a loose end. Peterhead is one the most significant fishing ports in Scotland, if not the UK, so I thought I’d go and do a bit of ‘fisheries liaison’ for the charity, after I took on the role among other roles, last year.

After a brief visit to Peterhead, in the pouring rain, I decided to make the most if this rare free time in Scotland and head on up to Fraserburgh.

This port had been super supportive of our charity and I was met by Tommy the harbourmaster and Jill Smith, who took an awful lot of time out to talk to me, answer my questions and understand more about the charity.

It was during this conversation that Tommy said “We’ll see you at the Fishing News Awards then on Thursday!” We would indeed.

“And the expo at the weekend….”

Pardon what?

“The expo. You are going aren’t you?

It is THE fishing event of the year. You HAVE to be there!”

I hung my head in shame. I had no idea what the Scottish Skipper Expo was or had even heard of it. It began the day after the Fishing News Awards and all our expo stand stuff was in Cornwall with Fred Nunn.

I promised I’d buy a ticket and go as a delegate, to at least start some conversations.

The rain continued to pour and I went back to my car and phoned Fred to tell him about my successful meeting with the harbour. I also told him about the expo.

“Well, I was going to come up to the awards anyway…” said Fred (news to me) “So I could chuck all the expo stuff in the van….if you can get a stand?”

A few manic phone calls later and we had a stand secured. We were going!

A chilled posh frock evening had turned into a frantic 3 day event.

Christine

Dolly our social media lady was on her way up by plane. We stuffed her into a taxi so Fred and I could spend the day setting up the stand at the P&J live exhibition centre, a seriously impressive venue next to Aberdeen airport.

Then it was poshing up time. Most of us had forgotten to scrub up after 2 years of covid and ‘not going out’.

We were piped in by some bagpipes and there was no shortage of fizz, with a truly electric atmosphere.

The food was exquisite and all locally sourced. We were joined by a gaggle of Ghost Fishing UK divers who came to represent the charity and before long, the winners were announced by the hilariously funny Des Clarke.

I’d had far too much champagne and prosecco, convinced that a nomination was as far as we would go. So both to my delight and horror, Ghost Fishing UK was announced as the winner of the Sustainability Award.

The walk to the stage was far longer that it should have been and we posed briefly for photos (thank goodness there was no need for a speech!) and ran back to my table as fast as possible, treading on some poor guy in my heels as I went….

Gobsmacked, all eyes were now on us for the next two days at the Skipper expo. Our award was in pride of place on our stand. Loads of people we had never met came to congratulate us and it was a huge ice breaker, enabling them to come and chat to us.

We didn’t meet an ounce of negativity from the fishing community and over the two days, Fred and I had all the conversations, in person, with all the people we had wanted to meet over the last several years.

Another social evening of superb food and drink had been laid on for the exhibitors on the Friday and the Saturday was a slightly quieter day at the expo, allowing us to meet and talk to key people and organisations properly.

It is so important for our charity to engage with the fishing community in a positive way and this event has shown that the fishing community care very much about the environment they live and work in and want it to thrive.

Hebridean Adventure, Part 4

Eriskay & the Uists

Eriskay

The next day I jumped on a ferry across to Eriskay to stay on South Uist at a lovely little campsite called Kilbride. I chose the campsites owing to their proximity to good launch sites and sand beaches. This one didn’t disappoint. It had nice facilities, a really good café and a white sandy cove right there in the doorstep.

The first day the weather was a bit grey and rainy so I opted to ride. The road north of Kilbride towards North Uist, whilst it follows the coastline, you can’t actually see it so the ride was a tad dull but I managed a 39 mile round trip to the far side of the land bridge to North Uist and back.

The following day looked better for paddling though a bit overcast still. I headed north with the ebb tide and planned to ride the flood tide back which worked perfectly.

Long stretches of sandy beaches and glass calm waters accompanied me, along with huge seal colonies everywhere. Seals are such timewasters, I could spend ages just sitting still in my kayak watching them.

About 10 miles later, I spied a good lunch spot on a long, sandy stretch of beach which looked immaculate at first glance. I didn’t have to womble far from my landing spot to find scraps of litter and lost fishing gear everywhere. Then, I came across a half buried trawl net with a dead, decaying dolphin carcass right next to it.

I picked up as much small litter as I could and shoved it in the hold of my boat and set off back to Kilbride, damp, windswept and tired.

There was a teenage girl on the campsite who is scared of spiders.

I was on the loo this morning when I heard screams coming from the shower cubicle opposite: “Muuuuuuummmm!!!!! It’s craaaawling!!! It’s got it’s tentacles out!!!!”

Now, last time I looked the friendly daddy long legs in cubicle 2 doesn’t have tentacles...but anyway...

Next thing, we had screams coming from her tent as one had moved in for the night. She practically burst through the side wall of the tent like a hedge backwards to escape the deadly beast. The whole campsite was now trying to find - and remove - Mrs long legs to get a good nights sleep....

The next day I spent a while driving around the islands and enjoyed some sand in my toes and a brief paddle in the crystal clear waters of Eriskay while I waited for the ferry to come in.

I didn’t want to go home.

It had been such a stunning adventure, with a seemingly unlimited amount of freedom and the only thing that curbed it was ferry times - but even then, I managed to jump early ferries whenever I showed up and there was nothing too much trouble for the Calmac staff.

Eriskay

Living my best life.

To follow my adventure is photos, check out my Instagram page.

I highly recommend the following campsites and eateries if you are ever heading over the Outer Hebrides:

Wavecrest Campsite, Barra

Fidden Farm Camping, Mull

Kilbride Campsite

Dana Villa, Oban

Enjoy this final little AV which sums up my mini adventure in the Outer Hebrides. It was an absolute pleasure to visit and I hope it will not be too long before I can return...

Hebridean Adventure, Part 3

Beautiful Barra

In the morning I headed back to Oban to grab the Barra ferry and rocked up at the very delightful Wavecrest campsite. Right on the beach, it promised good paddling but it was time for the bike again.

The campsite boasted showers so I treated myself - and couldn’t even get that right!

The £1 shower started as soon as the money dropped and I stupidly hadn’t even got undressed. In my haste, I plunged my hand into my wash bag and felt the blade of my eco razor slice off the top of my index finger.

Without even looking, I knew what I had done.

Crap.

Blood poured everywhere.

Determined not to waste my £1 coin - I only had one - I wrapped the sliced finger in loo roll and held it up above my head which slowed the bleeding a bit, whilst I tried to shower and wash my hair in the allotted time.

This is awkward anyway, but in my eco-friendliness I was using shampoo and conditioner bars which made things even harder, trying to get the lids off the pots and I kept dropping the bars. I was sure someone would find my body sliced in half through the glass door of the shower where I’d slipped on my eco-friendly conditioner bar.

What a way to go.

The shower stopped without warning at the conditioner phase - could have been worse - and I tried to get dressed without getting blood on any of my clothes, before mopping away the blood splats on the shower floor. FFS.

Back to the car, arm in the air, I single-handedly fished out my first aid kit which had enough to patch things up for the night.

Fortunately, a diver friend of mine who knew the area well, with the assistance of Facebook, pointed out the local A&E which I could visit on my bike ride the next day.

Epic shower fail

In the morning, having spent a relatively comfy night with my arm hooked over the headrests of my car, I re-patched my finger and set off round Barra for a stunning ride. As I headed north towards Barra airport, the sea became more turquoise and sparkly, the sun tried to come out and the sands got whiter and longer.

When I say airport, it is actually a sandy strip of beach and the tiny twin props were in and out all day.

I spied a good launch spot for my kayak and continued the ride around the island, stopping off in Castlebay to chat the the local (only) friendly paramedic in his ambo, before locating the A&E. The nurse was lovely and we had a good chin wag before she stuffed all sorts of fancy finger dressings in my bag and sent me on my way. 26 miles with only one evil hill.

News travels fast on Barra. By the time I got back to the campsite, the owner and his wife enquired as to if I was the lady paramedic who had sliced her finger off - and was there anything they could do. Bless them. I expect they felt terrible but I assured them it was all my own doing and I had cleared up the mess. They couldn’t have been nicer.

Castlebay

Despite being on the beach, the weather wasn’t ideal on the west side of the island the following day, so I drove my kayak up to the launching spot I had found and with a bit of effort, got myself and boat down to the beach. The tide was going out which made for a bit of shuffling to find deeper water. I was just getting afloat when a twin prop zoomed right over my head - right at the point I noticed a sign saying: “Stay off the beach when the wind sock is flying and the airport is active”. Oops.

I made a hasty exit across the bay and imagined the pilot shaking his fist at me.

Bloody tourists.

I had a cracking 11 mile paddle and the white sand made the colour of the water just unreal. It could have been Greece were it not for the 8 degree water temperature.

Hebridean Adventure Part 2

Marvellous Mull

After a quick lunch stop at a castle on Karrera and playing 'dodge the Calmac ferry', it was time to take the short journey over to Mull to meet up with my old diving buddy Darren Morley who had been living there for some years.

He had been doing all sorts of triathlons and sportives and I knew he would be up for a decent bike ride.

I met up with Darren at the local Salen Spar shop where I came across the local moggy, who was very chatty and fiercely guards the community defibrillator!

The Salen Spar shop moggy.

After a pleasant evening camp, we set off around northern Mull for a decent 44 mile ride. There were some evil hills with hair pin bends that scuppered me but luckily they were only short. The clag was down but Darren took the time to point out all the islands I would have seen on a better day!

We stopped in Tobermory to load up on whiskey and goodies, me thinking that all the hills were done.

How wrong I was! Shocked at the next one I was faced with, Darren kindly took all my whiskey swag and rode it up the hill.

It was to be his undoing as, some while later, a large lorry ran us off the road. Darren was fine but with two bottles of single malt and a bottle of gin on his back, he lost his balance and found himself upside down in a bramble bush! I sort of fished him out and we made our way back to Salen.

No sooner had we got back and Darren was away to rescue a lady from a campsite. He is part of the local mountain rescue on Mull and regularly gets called to drag hapless tourists up beaches, off mountains and out of campsites to the waiting ambulance.

Meanwhile, I set off on the single track road for over an hour to Fidden Farm, right at the other, western end of Mull. This was mean to be a kayaking mecca. I turned up in grey mizzle but parked right at the edge of the white, sandy beach with turquoise, calm waters. It was idyllic.

The next morning I literally rolled out of my sleeping bag and into my kayak for a gentle mooch just south west of Fidden Farm. There were seals and birds a plenty and lovely white sandy beaches on desolate islands for snack stops.

After a couple of nights here, I headed back to the mainland as I couldn’t get a ferry direct from Mull to Barra, my next stop.

On the advice of my good friend Dave Ryall, I found a nice little overnight top right on the shore of Loch Etive. The weather was ok, so I couldn’t resist a little paddle up the loch which was like glass; not a ripple. Then I heard a big splash behind me. I was being tracked by a couple of seals who no doubt hang out there in the hope of an easy meal from the fish farm in the loch.

After an evening of tinned camping food and some wine, I settled in for the night ready for the ferry crossing the next day to Barra.

Whisky stop at Tobermory

Hebridean Adventure, Part 1

It’s pretty shameful that, for someone who loves the great outdoors, I’ve been travelling to Scotland and back home again since 2017 without setting foot outside the hotels, harbours and airports.

Covid-19 forced many of us from the south west to ditch the 1 hour flight and take on the long haul to Aberdeen by road.

During one, long stint at sea I made an impulsive ebay purchase of two sea kayaks. Plus some blades and spray decks - and some roof bars…

The last part of mainland Scotland before catching the ferry

You see, my kayak marathon days were long over. In 2009, whilst training for a sub 24 hour Devizes Westminster race over 125 miles, I wrecked my lower back and had two bulging discs in my spine. It almost cost me my career and halted a lot of heavy physical exercise for almost a decade. Cave diving apart, of course…

So, I sold all of my racing boats and never got into a kayak again apart from the odd splash on holiday.

I’d been losing a tonne of weight and doing lots of cycling and my back was holding up. I took the plunge and spent weeks offshore planning my next adventure.

I had hoped a friend could join me but her van wasn’t ready. My car-come-camper Agnetha the spacetourer was all kitted out and ready to go. I set off to the outer Hebrides with promises of white sandy beaches, crystal clear waters and seals and basking sharks a plenty.

If Covid-19 has taught us anything it is that life is too short - and we only get one go at it. I decided not to waste a moment and headed down to Somerset, picked up my kayak and the mountain of Amazon purchases to go with it, did a quick cycling sportive (Great Weston Ride) and drove straight back up to Scotland.

To the amusement of my work colleagues, I had quite an itinerary! It was necessary to maximise how much I could see and do and juggle the ferry times and crossings.

My first stop was Oban where I stayed in a lovely B&B called Dana Villa and I found a great little place, Puffin divers, who not only let me park by the waters edge and launch my boat but took a lot of time and good humour to recommend a good paddle.

I did a lap of the island Kerrera which was about 13 miles and I hadn’t been on the water long before I was surrounded by seals!

I just about had enough time to finish my paddle, get the kayak back on the roof and head down to Oban to catch the evening ferry to Mull.