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A brief post to announce the release of my second book: In the Balance: A 15,000 km Voyage of the Seas of Europe

I accepted the income that summer tourism brings, rented out my home, and flew to Norway somewhat depressed about the carbon footprint these choices would lead to. It is difficult to be green.

At least the real journey started by bus. That delivered us to Inari in Finland, and the south-west corner of an enormous lake system that I had passed on the final leg of a previous journey.

Connecting with nature is connecting with our nature.
I wrote this after a hike into Pasvik National Park in Finnmark, Norway
We didn't catch any fish, it wasn't really about the fishing.

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It's not late but it is dark. The last of the sun was about 2 weeks ago, in November; its next appearance will be in February. There is no moon and the clouds shut out any starlight.

A video with some cobbled together sights and sounds from a three day paddle round my island home. I set off from Fornells with supplies in a barrel and a 6 litre water bottle. First night I slept on the beach at Son Saura; second night was at Punta Prima (where also refilled water bottle).

Film recommendation.

Planet of the Humans is a devastating and bleak assessment of where humanity is at.

It also contains serious factual inaccuracies. There are many critiques already circulating but this is the most thorough I have found that relates to the specific details:
https://ketanjoshi.co/2020/04/24/planet-of-the-humans-a-reheated-mess-o…

Back in 2015 I undertook my first long journey by windsurfer, around Britain. Here are the pictures and maps from the book - Long Standing Ambition - that followed. (Plus a few extra pictures - about 250 images total.)

The photos are in order and every few photos there is a map to roughly locate them. Thanks to those who took the contributed pictures, and those I met, some of whom feature in the gallery:

On the one hand, it is to be welcomed that there is a global response to a crisis. This is brilliant. It demonstrates that fast, radical change can happen quite easily, when there is a will.

On the other hand, that we are now in a tangible crisis, is resulting in a lot of emotion-led rhetoric and suspension/suppression of rational discourse. This is not a planet ending asteroid strike. We need to make sensible decisions rather than be bounced.

I love the poem IF. On lockdown in Spain, I came up with a version for these strange times:

IF: Covid-19 rework

If you keep your distance, though all about you
Are careless with theirs, and encroaching;
If you can be trusted when all men doubt you,
But trust no-one back, least yourself;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or hearing lies, don't deal in lies,
Or hearing blame, don’t give way to blaming,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

Britain rescued me. The journey round my home isles lifted a depression. For a day - or maybe a few - I became family with strangers, again and again, until the evidence was irrefutable: people really are nice. I doubt now that I ever believed otherwise. The idea that the group of people who I happen to know are kinder or more trustworthy than those I’ve never met… That would be odd!