Will Copestake

[00:00:00] Will Copestake: Hello, and welcome to the modern adventurer podcast coming up. One of the things we got out by about two kilometers, and it went from sort of 20 knots of winds to five 50 knots of wind, and very quickly that builds the sea up the sort of two meters it’s breaking. You’ve got Spindrift these little tornadoes coming past you.

I know that that felt it was pretty extreme when you’re in the boat.

On today’s show, we have an adventurer and kayak Xtrordinair will, has done some remarkable things. Over the years from kayaking around the fields of Patagonia to Norway, he has seen some spectacular things. And today on the podcast, we talk about some of those incredible events. I am [00:01:00] delighted to introduce Will Copestake to the show.

Thanks very much for having me, man. Good to be on. Well, absolutely pleasure. I’ve been really interested to sort of learn a bit more about your stories and adventures. I, I sort of came across you recently and I had to say your kayaking trips, the photography and film that you do is spectacular. And I absolutely, I’m really intrigued to sort of get into your stories about Patagonia and Norway and your story in Scotland as well.

But let’s start with how you got into this kayaking adventures. So, yeah, I’m really lucky actually. So I live in a small towns. Ullapool in the far Northwest of Scotland. The bottom of my garden was the seed growing up. And I, I want it clear. I, I grew up in dinghy sailing. My dad’s really into sailing and spent most of my time sailing things about the law.

[00:02:00] And I won’t make it become a really rubbish Cena, but on a side note of that, I ended up getting into paddling and really dive into that for these the lawn. So I suppose being up in Scotland, you were always grown up as a kid. You had the sort of outdoors to really express yourself. What was it about kayaking that you sort of took such a keen interest in.

So for me, it was, I’ve always loved playing in water. Initially for me, kayaking, I started as a whitewater paddler, more than a sea kayaker, which I tend to do more of nowadays. It was, it was simply because there was someone a little bit older than me school, who we all thought was quite cool.

And he was where he was willing to take me and my best mate out in, in riverboats and just shock us off stuff. Probably spent more time swimming than I did toddling and, and he would pick us up at the bottom and sort of way, like try at this time try not to do that this time or. That was good.

Try that. [00:03:00] And then see, cocking didn’t really come until later seriously after after university. And for me, I really love that ability in a C car to go very far, very remote, but pack relatively comfortable things. If you go for a week, you can pack nice food and you can pack compass. If you’re going more minimal, like you would hiking, you can, you can go for a month or more and get all that stuff in a boat.

And so your first, well as I said earlier, you know, you’ve done these incredible trips in sort of Patagonia and Norway with some of that, I suppose, being in a kayak, you also. You can go to these sort of remote beaches, which are so hard to sort of get to what was it about Patagonia, which sort of inspired you to do your kayaking trip?

There? That’s a Patagonia is the most amazing place. For me kind [00:04:00] of like a Scotland on steroids a little bit. It’s the mountains are a little bit bigger. The wilderness is just a little bit Wilder. The weather is fierce out there. It’s famously very windy. As a sea kayaker, that’s probably your worst enemy is wind.

And if you combine all those challenges, it makes a really a looming place to go and paddle. As an expedition, I actually went down there first as a guide and sort of cut my teeth in kite guiding for the first time in, in Patagonia. And it was two seasons there where you, as a guide, you’re basically going down the same river.

You didn’t see kayaks, but we were, we want to live a system and you would go round amount of, and always looking at the mountains that you knew behind thousands of miles of yours. That basically no one can get to, unless you’ve got a boat. And that it’s really alluring to go and sort of know what’s on the other side of those mountains.

And so the, the end of the second season, that was the kind of the kickoff point to [00:05:00] go and start doing these big expeditions out there was that kind of curiosity to see what may be on those and to go and explore it by doing that alone. No. So I have done a few trips alone in Patagonia. None more than three or four days.

The Navy there basically are the sort of the key holder to the fields and the sea and the rivers, unlike in the UK or in Europe, anything you do in Chile on the water needs, Naval permission. That’s largely because they, your free rescue service and it is incredibly difficult for them to best get you in a lot of these places.

And so it takes months of preparation to go through and get these permissions to go there. I’m one of those step ends is, is no solo trips. You do have to have a partner. So my best friend from the middle of Seamus, Nan comes down and he, [00:06:00] he normally flies down at the end of my season and joins me.

And we go off from NZ, these big, long trips together. How, how was it, what how did it sort of all start? Were you sort of weaving in and around this sort of fueled so Patagonia or was it very much a sort of. A root of which sort of a historic route that someone’s taken that you wanted to follow. So a little bit of both, actually the, the route itself, not any significance in a sort of the route we chose.

However, parts of that followed on with some of the, the original native tribes quarter shares and other tribes out there, the the the yardman. They, they were the people that Tierra Del Fuego got its name from the land of fire. It was their fires on the beaches that the early explorers saw and named it, the land of fire.

And these, these people were incredible. [00:07:00] They, they lived basically naked in the equivalent of a Scottish winter. So this, this sort of rain and wind and it’s sort of plus minus five degrees. And they survived by putting seal fat on themselves and lighting a fire in their canoes on a, on a bed of clay and navigating these fields.

And they, they would Portage between the, the sections where you could. And so I’ll, we included some of these add in and in terms of our actual route choice, it’s, it’s linear journey that we’ve been doing now over two expeditions. We’re going to hopefully finish it off with the third that we had to cancel last year.

That’s basically gone from the North to South through the fields. I’m not in the most linear way taking details here and there to go and see the, the, the big glasses tucks in the back of some of these fields which is what you really want to see is the glass CSL. So did you [00:08:00] did you dabble in seal fat?

Did you strip off and. Yeah, I could do the butter butter on there. Keeps it, keeps it nice and clean. No, I mean, we, we did, we did eat a lot of butter though. So every day you I’m eating half a keto butter and you and your meals, which is seen Yeah, no, definitely not. This, the seals, they have a big and scary and you don’t really want to go anywhere near them, but I can show you here as a comparison.

This is a Scottish CLT for those who can see on camera, I even won that game three. No, so that’s a Scottish one. That’s that’s the Magellanic first deal. There’s quite a significant belly meat and everything. How big our CEO’s are that they’re big old creatures. I mean, what is that? A couple of inch tooth.

Yeah, it must be what, two and a half, three inches thick enough. Good. And so, I mean, we had [00:09:00] Katie on episode 20 and she was talking about her trip and Patagonia. Which she sort of said, there’s such a famous sort of quaint and I are probably absolutely Bertram, but it was something like. The scenery is taken from heaven and the wind’s taken from hell or something along those lines.

I can’t remember exactly what it is. Well, if I’m having landscape from having carved from the winds of how I think if you see a lot of brochures, I mean, it’s true. I mean, it is hellish weather, but the landscape is heavenly. Yeah. No. I mean, some of your photography, cause you’re a very talented photographer and some of the shorts that you’ve got are absolutely incredible.

I mean, certainly makes me want to whip out the brochure and plan an expedition down there. Yeah. I mean, we’re really lucky to be able to get to these places and the, I mean, what you don’t see behind those amazing shots is the many, many days of not particularly amazing weather. [00:10:00] But Patagonia is one of these places.

You can basically point the camera anywhere. You’re going to get something pretty decent. It’s a, yeah, it’s a very photogenic place. Yeah. So how long was that expedition? So the, the first, the first of those expeditions through the fields was 33 days. We packed for 45. Because of that hellish, wind and weather, you don’t know if you’re going to get caught in one of these mega storms where you just cannot get out on the water safely.

And you’re talking kind of 50, 60 mile an hour winds plus on a fairly regular same PVC. You’re planning quite a bit of extra time. We got really lucky with the weather on our first one. So we shaved 10 days off, up on time. And on the second trip, we, again, we planned, I think for about three weeks and it took us 16 days in title.

It was again, a little bit on at the time, which is what you want. You don’t want to end up having a ration and things. I mean, the fact that you can just hold a camera anywhere and capture [00:11:00] these sort of spectacular moments. Were there any sort of moments along the way, which you can look back and think, wow, that taking a moment, it’s just something that you can sort of cherish for the rest of your life.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, there’s some of the days, particularly on the first trip we shamed Shamus, Nan, his, his last name, it we’ve called this list effect and then effect in the Seamus. It was his first Epic expedition. This first trip we did. And we had three kind of jewel in the crown point. So amazing glasses.

And every single time we had horrible weather between them. And when you arrived at these jewels in the crown, it’s suddenly the wind drop and the sun came out and it was just glorious on the middle field. Particularly we were as remote as you can get sort of over 350 400 K from the NamUs mode and just glassy is everywhere.

Perfect weather and just Louie as paddling and that [00:12:00] our memory and feeling of remoteness, I think will cherish for the rest of my life. Wow. I mean, being in lock down in the U K S and the one for the imagination,

and I suppose with the sort of terrible weather and sort of bury with the challenging weather conditions there, must’ve been some times where there are a few sort of hairy moments along the way where you were like, Cool. That’s, that’s definitely a few that caught us out a little bit. Again, with the wind in some of the key one there we, we only really got caught out once which was on a crossing.

There’s a few big open crossings that we had to commit to. And you take it really seriously. There’s no proper weather forecasting out there. So when you get to these crossings that are going to take you an hour to get over, you look at the clouds and the mountains all around you, and you sort of say, okay, what are they doing?

Does it look like the weather’s going to change? Do I feel [00:13:00] safe? Where am I going to blow? If things go well. And one of these, we got out by about two kilometers and it went from sort of 20 knots of winds to sort of sorts and five 50 knots of wind, and very quickly that builds to see up to sort of two meters.

It’s breaking, you’ve got Spindrift these little tornadoes coming past. And at that, that field feels pretty extreme when you’re in the boat. It’s interesting as well, cause there’s waves as a kayaker as a sort of inexperienced paddler, two meters is not big for a wave. It feels big but it’s very manageable.

But with those wins, what you end up with is a very steep two meters and it caps off of the top. And then from that capping off at the top, the wind is blowing you hellishly sideways. And so you’re, you’re more gracing and steaming and just trying to keep the boat on track. Thankfully, that wind was behind us, which was nice.

And it just non-city down into the fields. [00:14:00] And we basically got blown across this, this big open crossing and thankfully found shelter in the islands behind God. That must have been such a relief to sort of get into those shelters away from the sort of stool. Yeah, it gives, it gives your mind a lot of time to rest as much as the boat.

And it’s always funny because you could see the storm coming. As soon as it started to build that we got out and he suddenly saw this wall of wind coming and he thought Oh dear. And then suddenly, yeah, sort of going great. We’ve got to get to that point, which at this point with about 40 minutes paddle away at, as soon as you get in, there is a bit of a light, right.

Let’s stop and have a chocolate bar. That was, that’s a relief now, because I imagine you’re sort of, they’re weighing up your sort of like, is it going to move? Is it not? And then suddenly you’re like, right, let’s go for it. And because in sort of mountainous conditions, the weather can change so quickly.

Probably a as you say, after sort of 20, 30 minutes, you’re like. [00:15:00] Yeah. Okay. Yeah, actually Patagonia apart from being sort of high in mountain, that’s the only place I’ve ever seen weather change that quickly. I mean it can literally go from sunshine and no wind to snowing and sort of 2030 knots in, in less than a minute.

And it’s amazing how those sorts of funds suddenly go behind and they’re just on very digital and that can sort of go bang and stop as well. Hopeful. So your plan is to go back there. Yes. So let’s say we’ve done two trips so far linking sort of start to finish of each trip. So we were doing this very long linear journey and we could do it very quickly, but the idea is to sort of take your time and really see what’s out there.

And we have one planned we’re less than a week away from executing it. In fact, last March. Almost actually a smaller would be a year ago today. We, we [00:16:00] suddenly suddenly sort of said, ah, yeah, that’s not going to happen. And we’ve got to get home and isolate now. And, and I, I was in uni at that point and we were hoping to link up another 850 kilometers journey South through the state to Magellan into the beagle channel through one of these Westco corsages.

Yes. And then proceed down and around Cape horn come back and get which would have been a bit of a real fun adventure. One we still have to do as well. Yeah. When, when it all quiet in this down and a few, well, Hey, a few months nearly there we’re nearly there. Yeah. It seems, it seems that way over the hump.

And so I suppose people are probably listening, wondering, you know, would you, would you recommend this sort of trip? For the average person for a kayaker for an average paddler unless you’ve sort [00:17:00] of done a couple of other expeditions first or have someone in the group that’s experienced with dealing with those sort of conditions for an experienced paddler, I would absolutely recommend it.

It’s a, a sea club trip. But it’s definitely not one to kind of cut your teeth on as a first expedition, because it is a very, very remote place and, and quite demanding. But yeah, if you, if you’re feeling confident and experienced, it’s a, it’s an amazing part of the well worth the hassle to get enabled commissions.

It’s incredible. Yeah, it, it just does like one of the most breathtaking places in the world, but as you say, can be quite hospitable at times. Yeah. Yeah. And I, it does, it does claim people. There’s normally a few deaths a year.

And so from there you came back to Europe and you were sort of pursuing. Different sort of kayaking trips each [00:18:00] year from like Norway to Scotland because your Scotland trip sounds quite interesting. Can you sort of test for people listening? Yeah, probably Beth, you, you sort of describe what the sort of purpose of that Scotland trip was.

Yeah. So my, my Scotland trips pre precludes the Patagonia stuff. And that, that started when I, when I left the university, I’d done a couple of small on fitter expeditions overseas in Iceland, New Zealand and had always been asked about my home country and. How much can you really say about your home country?

It’s for me, I could talk fairly well about a small pocket in the North and very well around the kind of pocket, whereas it started university, but the rest of the country, I really had very little idea about. And so the idea was to try and circumnavigate the country by sea kayak, and then come North again through the [00:19:00] Monroe mountains, which are Tinder native peaks, over 3000 feet.

And the idea was that by coast and mountain and cycling between those as it went up, it would cover pretty much everything in Scotland. And I now realize that there’s an awful lot more to cover, but it gave a pretty good, good sort of taster. So yeah, we had Emily Scott on an episode nine and she, she ran and cycled this sort of 282 Madres.

She did it very, she did it very quickly. She did a really good job of that now. Sort of doing the same running up, cycling up. All around them. Yeah. Yeah. So when the car can kind of came first and all of that, I did 21 of them. And those as I passed on the kayak, cause they they’re the logical ones you access by the sea.

And then through, by the time I’d finished, that was [00:20:00] September. And so it was coming through them and lows mostly through the winter. As a result of that, you kind of cycle in with a byte base camp and then circuits of two to four days going through big rounds of them and come back to the bike and then cycling to the next sort of base camp and doing another big socket and then coming down because, because I was kind of siloed on my own most of the time that you had to make circuits, you couldn’t sort of do linear things and much, much like, I think Emily did.

She said that lots of circuits. Yeah. She, she said it was. I really, really amazing sort of experience because as you say, very rarely do you get to appreciate a lot of your own country in such different sort of pockets? Like every, every single place has their own sort of unique quality and with 208 cm res dotted around Scotland, you certainly got to experience quite a fair chunk of it.

Yeah, I think that there’s a certain magic [00:21:00] in doing a continual round of advice. You get to a summit and if you are lucky enough to have a nice view, you’re looking at, I’d probably the next 40, 50 mountains, you’ve got to climb and you’re looking back at 40 50 that you’ve just climbed and you aren’t actually traveling massive distances a lot of the time.

So you’re kind of doing. Feed mountains, Haven, and you may be going five miles and then you’re doing the next five mountains or so. So you get the same view from many different angles. Well, facing this kind of daunting view to the North going, Oh my goodness. As lows, and then the space satisfying view to the South thing.

Yeah. I’ve done those now. And it’s, it’s quite a unique feeling. Yeah. And so that Scottish trip that took all the good part of a year, wasn’t it? Yeah by complete and utter coincidence one day short of a year, which was not planned, it was supposed to take 10 months. The, the caulking was about the [00:22:00] right amount of time that I planned.

And then the mountains, it was one of the worst recorded winters on record. And that, that really slowed me down. I think we had sort of 12 major storm funds come through in the space of six months. Pretty pretty cool. Well, I’ll have to talk to Kenny. I don’t know what you’re complaining about. Yeah. I actually, Patagonia compares very well with it.

It’s a logical next step. Yeah. I, I have to say I lived up in Scotland for a bit and yeah, the weather can turn pretty, pretty, pretty bad, pretty quickly. Yeah, it really can be. God. And so, and then I suppose you’ve sort of been doing these sort of kayaking trips just every sort of year or so, going to a new place experiences.

I mean, as I was saying earlier, it’s such a amazing way to sort of explore the coast of a country. Yeah, it’s a really good way to get, I mean, certainly for example, in Scotland historically the coast or [00:23:00] the highway, a lot of coastal countries before, if you went by boat and you get an awful lot of religion culture it’s very interesting in Scotland, the further North you go, the more fringes out of gala and into hiking.

not that time. And is your sort of intentions just to keep sort of traveling every sort of. Part of the world with this, because it’s such as I was saying, it’s such an amazing way to explore and see, you could literally just pick a country on the coast and say, right, I’m just going, weaving up Norway or Sweden, or I can, I can spend the rest of my life kind of picking, picking random parts of the world.

There’s various ones I’d like to go to before local [00:24:00] planet. And it would be, it’d be nice to get as many as possible, but I think for me, it’s a balance as well. Cause cause I run a kayaking business. I’m I’m paddling most of the summer. And then it’s my escape. I want to leave to go paddling or cycling or like and so it’s, it’s kind of trying to go somewhere that’s a bit fresh and new and, and develops your own, your own ability and sort of a license.

And it’s a bit. What sort of tips do you have for people who are keen to kayak? What’s this one sort of like bit of advice you would give them? Main thing I would say is not to get too hung up on kit because cocking is one of those sports that you can buy and spend a lot of money on. And you can have fun in a really cheap boat.

You do need to get obviously the safety stuff. So kayak and points, the aid. Huddles if you’re going on your own spare paddles of pump and I would recommend the helmet as well. But you don’t have to buy [00:25:00] the sort of thousand pound ones. You can buy relatively cheap things. And as a beginner paddler, I always say, be practicing practice with an onshore wind somewhere.

That’s going to blow you into a safe ground and not onto sort of clips of what was there anything. And as long as you stay close and I don’t share wins, if you’re a decent swimmer and you’ve got a buoyancy, Aidan, you’ll probably get into shore. If you get into trouble better, if you can do something with a club or something like that, there’s a lot of local clubs who will teach you really well as well.

Or someone like that. We’ll set you out and teach you. It’s a shameless plug. What’s the company called. Kayak summer miles. And here we go. So I have a little confession because your trip in Norway, I a couple of years ago had planned to do this kayaking trip around Lofoten. And I was very, very envious of when I was doing my research for [00:26:00] this to sort of see this sort of beautiful landscapes, no way.

And the trip that you had up there. Very sort of briefly, I mean, how was it so I can sort of imagine it and pretend like I was no way it’s basically Northern Patagonia. It is amazing. The ambassador fields has got, I mean, similar sort of thing. You can point the camera anywhere and it beautiful anywhere you go.

It’s just wonderful. The culture is amazing. Seamus actually joined me on that trip as well. And. To give a kind of background to this. When, when we plans Norway, Seamus, and I plan Norway, we plan this in, in June June, July. That was our big trip was to drive his van up to Nordkapp kayaker circumnavigation of our Millard’s cap, and then go into the photon and just explore the photon with kayaks.

But for a few weeks [00:27:00] on a whim, I then phoned Shamus and said, I’m, I’m planning this big Patagonia to it as you want to come down. And he sort of said, all right. And so I’ll drop tools and that, that Patagonia trip became this big mega wild adventure. I know way, which we planned them sort of paid for then became all as kind of a post-trip debrief and a, and a bit of a relaxed.

And we were staying in a we’re sleeping out in the back of a bag. We went intense, it was pretty relaxed and know you’re not going out for months at a time and going out for sort of days at a time. And so the, the whole mood of that trip for us was very chilled out. And there’s nobody doing sort of interesting things in both.

It was, it was kind of very much on our terms. And we got fortunate with the weather too. It was, it was gorgeous. Yeah. We, I take it. You went in the summer. Yeah. So it was kind of June into July. So 24 hour sunlight, but Seamus [00:28:00] liked it so much when we got to Norco, he got the job and stayed there most of the summer.

Not really surprised. I mean, I’d say as I was sort of saying then for anyone listening, it is just one, it just looks like one of the most spectacular places. Yeah. I mean, pretty much anywhere in Scandinavia, it really is. Fantastic is just a lovely culture and the culture generally, it’s very outdoors. If those, your average person is very capable of equipments doing something outdoors that, and they love sharing that as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Big fan of Scandinavia. Well, we’ll, there’s a part of the show where we asked the same five questions to each guest each week. With the first being, well, I, I need to quickly now look it up because let’s just see on your trips, what’s the one item or gadget that you always bring with you?

[00:29:00] I’ll not include the kind of practical stuff like tents and sleeping bags and things because you need those and all the trips. The one thing that I carry with me that is completely and utterly useless, but very important sentimentally is a compass, which. Is completely ruined. Yeah. I was going to say listening it’s completely broken.

Yeah. It, it, it, it doesn’t point North. There’s a large hole in the screen that was actually from someone’s crampon. Which has a funny story. I lost it on a Hill and somebody found it and through the power of social media. Got it. Back to me. And he found that attached to the Butler’s crampon it’s from 1914, it was like great granddad’s compass.

Just kind of being on every adventure of being not amazing, but it’s heavy and completely useless, but quite good from the County about. Okay. What is your favorite adventure or travel book? Ava travel. But I will [00:30:00] start with the one that really got me inspired the DMO Scotland trip, which is blazing paddles on Wilson.

Subsequently followed him. That was his, his account of, of caulking. And Scotland’s thinking the eighties late eighties really one of the first people to ever do so, and long before dry bags and technology and things were really kind of, as they are now. And it’s just beautifully written, really kind of captured it.

I’d also probably say mood to future joy as well as to Humphreys, which was kind of one of the early trouble, but kind of gave me inspiration to go and think things out and down on the world. Yeah, he does come out with some pretty cool stuff now. And again. Yeah, and I it’s, it’s one of those books, it captures, well, the little bits of expedition, the kind of the stuff that’s not so interesting to focus on like routine and the kind of small subtleties of things that people comment on and things, things happen [00:31:00] to you.

Things as simple as getting up and making coffee when you’re in a tent and that sort of stuff is often overlooked, but it can be a big part of your day when you’re batching your VT. We went last, the last sort of big trip. I did. We always used to wake up, make a cup of tea. God, that sounds so British saying that essential, essential

starts starts today, right? Absolutely. Why are adventures important to you? Ventures important to me because I find they, they kind of ground you in your surroundings. I find going on a longer adventure allows you to really kind of immerse yourself in whatever discipline or place you’ve decided to be in.

And it allows your body to slowly adjust and react to that. I find if you go in on a short trip, you can see things [00:32:00] and you can push yourself to whatever limits you want, but you don’t have the time to develop the routine. And it embeds you into that venture. And that over time slightly changes you as a person.

And you basically will making any version of yourself in different surroundings slowly. Oh, that’s really nice. I haven’t really ever thought of it like that, but it’s, it’s very true. What is your favorite quote or motivational quote? So this, this one was, is from my dad and he tells me every time I’m having a hard time on an expedition which is it’s better to be Shackleton than Scott.

And basically no one would know where to call it. And so it’s, and that’s often a login into the head so that when you’re going through a difficult time to go, should I proceed or should I stop sit and think about this? Like it’s. It’s [00:33:00] quite often better to stop and think back to still would be to the admin person who was successful pretty much throughout his expeditions.

Shackleton’s still had some diabetics to be fair. Well, who was it? Shackleton? And he said it’s better to be a alive live donkey than a deadline. Yes. Yeah. It was something along those lines. I probably, I, again, I probably just butchered an absolutely not the classic quote, the modern version. It’s better to be a check-in than the car.

Yeah. Hey, that’s I always liked that one. People listen always keen to go on uni, sort of granted ventures around the world. What’s the one thing you would recommend for people wanting to go on big granted ventures? The one thing I recommend for people going big brands adventures is to leave it a little bit open to what you actually want to [00:34:00] achieve.

The best adventures I’ve ever, ever had, often the sort of side things that happened as a result of the initial plan. And so not, not to get target fixated. And I, and I want to go and do this mission if you will, if you’re kind of there to do one thing, you often forget about all the other things surrounding it, and you don’t have the time to enjoy that.

And, and whatever you do big or small, you want to take that that’s sort of take the blinkers off. And so. Remember that you’re in these amazing places or you’re doing something amazing and you should enjoy it for what it is. Even when you’re feeling pretty grim about it, if it’s, if it’s hard, it’s types of fun.

Yeah. I agree with that. I was sort of speaking about it the other day, the idea of going quite on an open-ended adventure, where you don’t know too much about what’s going to happen. You just sort of take it on a day to day, because sometimes if you’re so target focused, as you said, you do miss. [00:35:00] Those little moments, whether it’s someone saying, come in for a cup of tea or whether it’s come in for dinner or, you know, wanting to stop and chat, if you’re so driven and focused, usually you miss those interactions, which end up being the most unique and what makes those expeditions really memorable.

Yeah. And I have an example from some personal experiences from my Scotland trip being on my own, but at the end of the cocky, I got very. The last few months you get very target fixated when you start seeing a goal. And I, I got very good at kind of doing distance and just putting head down and then paddling, and of course enjoying your surroundings to degree, but you kind of also sort of making ground as priority.

I’m not held into the Patagonia trip where Seamus joins. And in the first couple of days, I kind of went into that and recessed back into that mindset of, okay, we’ve got eight to be today. That’s the way to be. And then Seamus pointed out that actually, no, let’s, let’s [00:36:00] go look in, in those bays and let’s see what’s around there and then sort of deviating and slowing down and sort of saying, Oh, I’ve never seen a penguin before.

Let’s go and have a look at that penguin. And stuff like that. And, and slowing down very purposefully. Yeah. Initially for me, I found that the first day or so, a little frustrating. And then afterwards being like, Oh no, he is completely right. Yes. That’s what you’re here for you. We might as well enjoy it.

It’s probably never going to be there. Yeah. I think we were at disco. That was, I think it was discussing with Julie Stewart and saying, no one really cares how quickly you go, unless you’re breaking the world record. For be in the fastest kayak to go round Scotland. No one cares that you’ve put in a hundred miles or 80 miles.

It’s really just about your own personal ambition. Yeah. It it’s, it’s kind of your memories and the memories that you can. Give to other people, if you’re, if you’re in a group that kind of what you want to produce a record at the end of the day is just [00:37:00] a bit of ego on the wall, hanging at home. Do you have one of the things?

I don’t officially know. I could probably claim some if I, if I hunted through that’s never really bothered me. Yeah, they did do it for do it for yourself for a coolest. So we’ll finally, you know, what are you doing now and how can people find you and follow your adventures in the future? So at the moment, I’m preparing as hard as I can to get my company back up and running offering kayaking trips in the Northwest of Scotland.

If you want to join us, you can find us at kayak, someone else.com or on Instagram contact or somewhere else. So my personal adventures, I’m kind of looking a little bit ahead now for 2023 to do that capable and trip. And you can follow me on will state media.com or at Wilco state. And yeah, and look forward to seeing some of the outlets come this way.

[00:38:00] Well, we’ll put a link to your Instagram and a website on, on my website. Say, people can follow you and find you. And well it’s been an absolute pleasure hearing your stories. And as I saying, feel me a little bit of envy. At the moment, like I say, I’m the same as everyone else. So you get home, I’m building a shed as my big adventure feel, feel a bit less obvious and do that stuff as well.

Well, very soon we will be out I’m sure in big adventures, but we’ll thank you so much for coming on today. Been a pleasure. Thank you for having me well today. Thank you so much for watching and I hope you got something out of it. If you did hit that like button and subscribe, if you haven’t already, and I will see you in the next video.