Board of Europe

Head Board Ι Paddle Board Ι Story Board Ι Picture Board Ι Water Board Ι Board Talk Ι Notice Board: 2007 UK Tour

The 2007 Board of Europe paddleboard challenge

31st December 2007 By Rob

On the 12th September 2007, Polly and myself climbed into the cab of 'Denzil', my Mitsubishi Delica, and closed the doors to start what would turn out to be an unrelenting 3,000 mile drive on unquestionably the most exciting adventure that either of us had ever undertaken. What would follow over the coming 21 days would turn out to test friendship, body, mind and machine.

But before any of this could happen, we first had to pick up the kids. Neil had been staying at his brother's house in London, whilst Fletch had been spending a day saying goodbye to his loved one, co-incidentally also in London. Hence our first paddle would take place on the famous stretch of the Thames between Putney and Mortlake, better known for being the theatre of dreams for many a University Boat Race crew over the last hundred years. Cleverly, the 'Old Mariner' in me would read the tide tables accurately, but forget all about the ebb of the tideway. Our looks of determination and excitement quickly turned to bewilderment as our feet entered the water to find the tide very much going the wrong way. This first 7.8km paddle then, starting at 11:28 on the 13th September in warm sunshine, would take us 1 hour, 3 minutes and 17 seconds. With such a poor buildup to the actual tour, it would be fair to say that neither of us felt great after that first effort. Our fitness was there, but our bodies were in no way prepared for the first paddle to be such a treadmill effort against the strong flow. Polly's tuna and apple sandwiches in the shade of Tideway Sculllers school helped us to come to terms with what we had set ourselves, and for Neil to come to terms with fruit and fish inside bread. By the end of the first day we had already driven 268 miles. This would prove to be an omen for the days that followed.

Some good rowing friends from Dover kindly put us up that first night in their house, Lee himself being a Guinness World Record holder for the fastest crossing of the Channel in a coxed four. We spent that evening re-charging ourselves and our camera batteries, and discussing which of us was crazier than the other. I was still mulling over this the next morning as we pulled up at St Margarets Bay, the start of many a Channel swimming venture, and met up with help in the form of a camera and safety RIB courtesy of Dover Watersports Centre.As we started the 5km paddle at 10:30am, two things became apparent. Firstly, neither of us had paddled in scenery as fantastic as unfolded on the skyline in front of the White cliffs, and also that the double board. 'Summer Haze', was an absolute pig to handle in choppy, windswept water. The 45 minutes spent paddling became exhausting, with us both fighting the board more than making it travel forwards. Maybe Lee was right, perhaps we were a little more nuts than him. Somehow, by the end of the second day, another 203 miles had been driven. We were lucky to have chosen water safety to promote and not carbon footprint reduction.

Still stalled from the exhausting shock of making 'Summer Haze' work for us on the ocean, we decided on single boards for the 7km, 2 hour round trip from Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door and back again.Suddenly the scenery of Dover was eclipsed in its beauty by the perfection of Lulworth, quite literally breathtaking. Neil, the naturalist in the team, perhaps took more beauty from South Africa's dispatching of England the night before in the Rugby World Cup, a theme that was to be discussed more than once in the days to come. A quick dash to Portland to meet my parents and to paddle under 'Bill' rounded off what we all agreed to as just about as perfect a day as you are ever likely to have. 702 miles completed.

The next two days blurred into exhaustion as we traversed the south coast of England to Land's End, and encountered 4 sites in 24 hours. At Sennen we again tried the double, and ended up getting seasick. At Land's End we nearly blew off the cliff top. The air temperature dropped 9 degrees since the luxury of Lulworth, the telecommunicions beach of Porthcurno providing the only haven from the buffeting storms that blew up and landed us in Fistral Beach, Newquay, on the 17th. This was where our natural fitness kicked in, being able to get in and out of the water at regular intervals, in some truly rough water. Fistral, the surfing capital of England, blew up to a 4 foot mess with a 15knot cross wind that made simple things as carrying the boards a real issue. Neil and Pol froze for 4 hours on the windswept beach as Fletch and I gradually realised that walking was not much better that paddling. Later analysis of the heart rate traces from the day suggested the need for three full days of recovery before another big effort. 907 miles driven, and nearly 35km each of paddling with 2 weeks remaining. Staying the night at Portreath Surf Life Saving Club, we emerged from a restaurant to find 4 miles of the hillside above the beach straddled by 50 foot flames due to an out of control gorse fire. Sleep, however, was not a problem.

Thankfully, a few days of light travelling came at just the right time as we headed up the west coast to our favourite haunt of Woolacombe. Put up for a few nights with Alan Neighbour, our board builder, 'Summer Haze' was repaired whilst we surfed main beach knocking out 7km over 4 hours.After meeting with our sponsor, and European Ironman and Board paddling Champion, Nick Thorn, we spent a wonderful evening taking 30 kids from Saunton Sands Life Saving Club for their last session of the year, followed by instructing them in the eating of sausages and chips in the clubhouse. It always amazes me how many quality 'water angels' these clubs produce year on year, helping to keep children and adults alike educated in water safety. To say that many of these sub-teenage boys and girls were good board paddlers would be an understatement, all were superb, humbling the two of us with their natural abilities.By the 19th we had reached Avonmouth in Bristol, with Steve Halstead, one of our major supporters. 1,172 miles down, Avonmouth was, in Neils words, 'Rough as a bears a*se and not much more hygienic'. 25knots of headwind thundering up the estuary prevented the Portishead Lifeboat from reaching us, at which point we decided enough was enough and settled for a shoot in the mud-ridden water only a few hundred metres offshore. A warm reception, lubricated with bacon and coffee from Avon Fire and Rescue service rounded off a welcome day of recovery for the long trek north that would come.

That long trek would begin that afternoon. Bristol to Evesham, a night stop at Greenhalgh mansion for washing and re-stock, then up to York for a night at Neil and Chloes. En-route we had decided to retire from Birkenhead and Mull due to the weather conditions in the area, so did an 8km paddle in York to compensate. From there, an early start to the nature reserve of Spurn head and a morning with the RNLI Lifeboat station there. Again, an attempt was made to paddle 'Summer Haze' in the atrociously choppy and windy waters off Spurn, for which we were accompanied by a pair of seals, intent no doubt on seeing if we could be eaten. Was the highlight viewing Spurn from the top of the lighthouse, courtesy of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust? Not for me who would have settled for the carpark view. That afternoon on single boards we conquered the Humber Estuary, Fletch managing to drift half a mile downstream in his crossing against the 5 knot current, but still claiming on being the first across. Warm showers and coffee supplied by Humber Inshore Rescue helped us prepare for the trip cross-country, nearly 180 miles to the Lake District.

The mists parted early next morning to allow us to paddle the single boards 12km across Lake Windermere, the longest paddle to date.Polly drove a hire boat to allow Neil to photograph, however the boards quickly left the boat behind so they reverted to meeting us at the finish before driving to Ullswater where another few kilometres were paddled in the icy mountain water. Denzil struggled with his brakes completely frying during the huge descents through the Lakes, being quenched with every liquid imaginable from urine to Powerade.The Lake District gave way over the next two days to the Corpach sea loch in Fort William, as bleak and desolate a place as any of us had ever seen, with water temperatures dipping into the single figures very suddenly. A long but undeniably scenic jaunt then brought us to Invermoristons' 'Old Bridge' (built in 1805), before reaching the famous Loch Ness for a 7km paddle on the 24th. 2,089 miles travelled, and as we caught the full force of a Scottish storm in the middle of the Loch, surfable waves emerged in the crystal clear water that made that cold and wet day so memorable.Never before have I paddled or swam in such fresh and clean waters as those, akin to the taste of bottled mineral water.

200 miles to the south of us, down one of the emptiest, best kept and least used roads to date, the Falkirk Wheel provided the next centrepiece of the paddle, including the 10.5km excursion that we put in on the canal, through its 800m long pitch dark hillside tunnel. Thankfully, that night in our exhausted state we enjoyed the hospitality of Falkirk Fire Station, put up for the night by the local brigade in the station quarters. Using their brand new drying room to full extent, we made a swift departure the next morning leaving behind the most dreadful stench from our kit that by now had been wet for over a fortnight.Several hundred miles later found us the guests of some of Pollys relations in Manchester; 5km on the ship canal proved interesting from a cleanliness point of view before we trundled down, weary and tired to Llangollen to cross the famous aqueduct that stood around 130 feet above the River Dee. 2,726 miles complete, and just a few venues left to paddle.

So soon and yet so long after we left on the 12th, Polly and I arrived in Cardiff to complete the tour at the British Suf Ski championships. Fletch and Neil had departed that morning to their respective homes, so a last minute replacement of Fletch for a more attractive partner arrived in the form of Luisa, a member of our home club who had just started University in Cardiff. Together we completed the final 10km paddle under the Millennium Stadium to massive interest from the 50 or 60 ski paddlers taking part. A fitting end to what had amounted to nearly three weeks of continuous paddling, promotion and driving. The final milage count would be 2,969 miles driven, and a total of 190km paddled between us.

So what next? As we pulled back into Evesham on the night of the 29th September, I was in a state of complete weariness. Whilst we had neither completed as much paddling as we had hoped, nor hit the extreme physical 'burnout' that we had expected, the combination of travelling, paddling, unrest and concentration had all combined to really take it out of us. My feet were blistered raw from being rubbed against sand and board wax. Both of our wetsuits had worn dramatically in some places, and I had trouble for weeks afterwards with overarm movement. Amazingly, neither of us suffered any kind of injury or illness that we would have expected from the type of exercise and the water qualities that we encountered. That would come a few weeks later. As a group of friends and a team, in some respects we gelled extremely well, however in others we perhaps disappointed each other in quite substantial ways. Being cooped up for 3 weeks in a truck and in various rooms, things could have been so much worse and we neither argued nor fell out. The changes in some of our friendships however, would certainly be evident as we departed Cardiff back into reality. Epic our trip had not been, especially in comparison to the massive life-changing challenges that some people put themselves through, but put into perspective, we had all achieved something very special and certainly influential on our own futures.In particular, Fletch and myself, partners in a sporting sense for many years, learned more about each-other in those three weeks than we had ever done so before, changed as we were from our childhood times of rowing into adult individuals perhaps trying to emulate that past spirit. Didn't Bruce Springsteen call that 'The Glory Days'?

We had distributed a huge box of water safety leaflets and materials supported by several major charities, and had chatted with and been seen by countless members of the public and volunteer organisations over the three weeks.We had collected 12Gb of professional quality photography, amounting to some 4,250 images. Video-wise, we produced nearly 20 hours of footage, some of it groundbreaking to us in terms of underwater and board-mounted. The experience, still very raw and unreal, was going to be something that would get better for us the more we thought about it. Planning for the use of the media we had so lovingly created was however to be ruined just a few days later.

Not a day after I returned home to Loughborough and unloaded everything, ready to start a new job the day after, my house was burgled and every single piece of digital camera equipment that we had for the project vanished, along with it the last 4 hours of video footage from the final three days of the tour. The blow was a bitter one, and even after an extensive media campaign put on by Leicestershire Constabulary, nothing was recovered.The camera equipment would be replaced through insurance, but the footage was lost, along with it the incentive to follow through our work. All of us were mentally exhausted by the effort of the buildup and the tour, by the anticlimax of the finish, by our own private issues and circumstances that would in some cases be changed so much by the project, and now by this theft. Regrettably, the website and the media were shelved after unsaid agreement between us all, until 'easier times'. We had all had enough for a few months and needed a break.

That break of some 12 weeks since we returned has seen everything happen to the four of us; new jobs, new homes, family deaths, illnesses, new partners and new challenges. It is only now, on the eve of the New Year, that I feel able to put some life back into this project and push it ahead into 2008. Undoubtedly it will not be what we envisaged some 14 months ago when Polly and I dreamt the idea up in the Flemish village of Ypres. With any luck though, the experience we have all gained, aided by new friends and supporters, will help us to continue to push the boundaries of paddleboarding, and use it to push the message of water safety as far as we can.

As Jimmy Nail sang during that trip to Belgium, and countless times since then, 'Memories, just like the seas, live on'.

We wish to thank the following individuals and organisations for their support which made the September trip possible;

Malcolm Ball (& all at Snugg Wetsuits), Martin Benetar (Bodyscience UK Ltd), Barney Atkinson (Wraice Ltd), Alan Neighbour, Elaine, Jay and Katie, all at Saunton Sands SLSC, Dave Green, Ryan Doble, Portreath SLSC, Thomas Zachert (Force Field Europe), Dover Watersports Centre, Lee Stampton & family, Dover Rowing Club, Sarah Chapman, Avon Fire and Rescue, Falkirk Fire & Rescue, British Waterways, RNLI Spurn, RNLI Sennen Cove, Corpach Sea Lockmaster, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the Smith family (Poole), Nick Thorn, Thames Navigation, Portishead Lifeboat, Amateur Rowing Association, Cliff Nelson, Anna Walters, Mike Dunn, Adrian Lole, Steve Wills, Danny Bryant, Cameras Underwater Ltd, Chloe Scott (the future Mrs Neil Aldridge), Vicky Jackson, Adrian Mayhew, Jason Mayhew, Malcolm Blacksall, Eddie & Liz Fletcher, Alan & Pat Inett, Simon, Jane and Katie Greenhalgh, Peter Gray, Surfers Against Sewage, SurfAid International, Owen Phillips, Luisa Petta, 'The old guy on the boat on Loch Ness', and all the hundreds of people who waved, shouted, abused, smiled, spoke and encouraged us along the way in September.

Very special thanks to Melanie Jefferies and Steve Halstead.


Head Board Ι Paddle Board Ι Story Board Ι Picture Board Ι Water Board Ι Board Talk Ι Notice Board 2007 UK Tour The 2007 Board of Europe paddleboard challenge Visit the Picture Gallery Here 31st December 2007 By Rob On the 12th September 2007, Polly and myself climbed into the cab of 'Denzil', my Mitsubishi Delica, and closed the doors to start what would turn out to be an unrelenting 3,000 mile drive on unquestionably the most exciting adventure that either of us had ever undertaken. What would follow over the coming 21 days would turn out to test friendship, body, mind and machine. But before any of this could happen, we first had to pick up the kids. Neil had been staying at his brother's house in London, whilst Fletch had been spending a day saying goodbye to his loved one, co-incidentally also in London. Hence our first paddle would take place on the famous stretch of the Thames between Putney and Mortlake, better known for being the theatre of dreams for many a University Boat Race crew over the last hundred years. Cleverly, the 'Old Mariner' in me would read the tide tables accurately, but forget all about the ebb of the tideway. Our looks of determination and excitement quickly turned to bewilderment as our feet entered the water to find the tide very much going the wrong way. This first 7.8km paddle then, starting at 11:28 on the 13th September in warm sunshine, would take us 1 hour, 3 minutes and 17 seconds. With such a poor buildup to the actual tour, it would be fair to say that neither of us felt great after that first effort. Our fitness was there, but our bodies were in no way prepared for the first paddle to be such a treadmill effort against the strong flow. Polly's tuna and apple sandwiches in the shade of Tideway Sculllers school helped us to come to terms with what we had set ourselves, and for Neil to come to terms with fruit and fish inside bread. By the end of the first day we had already driven 268 miles. This would prove to be an omen for the days that followed. Some good rowing friends from Dover kindly put us up that first night in their house, Lee himself being a Guinness World Record holder for the fastest crossing of the Channel in a coxed four. We spent that evening re-charging ourselves and our camera batteries, and discussing which of us was crazier than the other. I was still mulling over this the next morning as we pulled up at St Margarets Bay, the start of many a Channel swimming venture, and met up with help in the form of a camera and safety RIB courtesy of Dover Watersports Centre.As we started the 5km paddle at 10:30am, two things became apparent. Firstly, neither of us had paddled in scenery as fantastic as unfolded on the skyline in front of the White cliffs, and also that the double board. 'Summer Haze', was an absolute pig to handle in choppy, windswept water. The 45 minutes spent paddling became exhausting, with us both fighting the board more than making it travel forwards. Maybe Lee was right, perhaps we were a little more nuts than him. Somehow, by the end of the second day, another 203 miles had been driven. We were lucky to have chosen water safety to promote and not carbon footprint reduction. Still stalled from the exhausting shock of making 'Summer Haze' work for us on the ocean, we decided on single boards for the 7km, 2 hour round trip from Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door and back again.Suddenly the scenery of Dover was eclipsed in its beauty by the perfection of Lulworth, quite literally breathtaking. Neil, the naturalist in the team, perhaps took more beauty from South Africa's dispatching of England the night before in the Rugby World Cup, a theme that was to be discussed more than once in the days to come. A quick dash to Portland to meet my parents and to paddle under 'Bill' rounded off what we all agreed to as just about as perfect a day as you are ever likely to have. 702 miles completed. The next two days blurred into exhaustion as we traversed the south coast of England to Land's End, and encountered 4 sites in 24 hours. At Sennen we again tried the double, and ended up getting seasick. At Land's End we nearly blew off the cliff top. The air temperature dropped 9 degrees since the luxury of Lulworth, the telecommunicions beach of Porthcurno providing the only haven from the buffeting storms that blew up and landed us in Fistral Beach, Newquay, on the 17th. This was where our natural fitness kicked in, being able to get in and out of the water at regular intervals, in some truly rough water. Fistral, the surfing capital of England, blew up to a 4 foot mess with a 15knot cross wind that made simple things as carrying the boards a real issue. Neil and Pol froze for 4 hours on the windswept beach as Fletch and I gradually realised that walking was not much better that paddling. Later analysis of the heart rate traces from the day suggested the need for three full days of recovery before another big effort. 907 miles driven, and nearly 35km each of paddling with 2 weeks remaining. Staying the night at Portreath Surf Life Saving Club, we emerged from a restaurant to find 4 miles of the hillside above the beach straddled by 50 foot flames due to an out of control gorse fire. Sleep, however, was not a problem. Thankfully, a few days of light travelling came at just the right time as we headed up the west coast to our favourite haunt of Woolacombe. Put up for a few nights with Alan Neighbour, our board builder, 'Summer Haze' was repaired whilst we surfed main beach knocking out 7km over 4 hours.After meeting with our sponsor, and European Ironman and Board paddling Champion, Nick Thorn, we spent a wonderful evening taking 30 kids from Saunton Sands Life Saving Club for their last session of the year, followed by instructing them in the eating of sausages and chips in the clubhouse. It always amazes me how many quality 'water angels' these clubs produce year on year, helping to keep children and adults alike educated in water safety. To say that many of these sub-teenage boys and girls were good board paddlers would be an understatement, all were superb, humbling the two of us with their natural abilities.By the 19th we had reached Avonmouth in Bristol, with Steve Halstead, one of our major supporters. 1,172 miles down, Avonmouth was, in Neils words, 'Rough as a bears ase and not much more hygienic'. 25knots of headwind thundering up the estuary prevented the Portishead Lifeboat from reaching us, at which point we decided enough was enough and settled for a shoot in the mud-ridden water only a few hundred metres offshore. A warm reception, lubricated with bacon and coffee from Avon Fire and Rescue service rounded off a welcome day of recovery for the long trek north that would come. That long trek would begin that afternoon. Bristol to Evesham, a night stop at Greenhalgh mansion for washing and re-stock, then up to York for a night at Neil and Chloes. En-route we had decided to retire from Birkenhead and Mull due to the weather conditions in the area, so did an 8km paddle in York to compensate. From there, an early start to the nature reserve of Spurn head and a morning with the RNLI Lifeboat station there. Again, an attempt was made to paddle 'Summer Haze' in the atrociously choppy and windy waters off Spurn, for which we were accompanied by a pair of seals, intent no doubt on seeing if we could be eaten. Was the highlight viewing Spurn from the top of the lighthouse, courtesy of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust? Not for me who would have settled for the carpark view. That afternoon on single boards we conquered the Humber Estuary, Fletch managing to drift half a mile downstream in his crossing against the 5 knot current, but still claiming on being the first across. Warm showers and coffee supplied by Humber Inshore Rescue helped us prepare for the trip cross-country, nearly 180 miles to the Lake District. The mists parted early next morning to allow us to paddle the single boards 12km across Lake Windermere, the longest paddle to date.Polly drove a hire boat to allow Neil to photograph, however the boards quickly left the boat behind so they reverted to meeting us at the finish before driving to Ullswater where another few kilometres were paddled in the icy mountain water. Denzil struggled with his brakes completely frying during the huge descents through the Lakes, being quenched with every liquid imaginable from urine to Powerade.The Lake District gave way over the next two days to the Corpach sea loch in Fort William, as bleak and desolate a place as any of us had ever seen, with water temperatures dipping into the single figures very suddenly. A long but undeniably scenic jaunt then brought us to Invermoristons' 'Old Bridge' (built in 1805), before reaching the famous Loch Ness for a 7km paddle on the 24th. 2,089 miles travelled, and as we caught the full force of a Scottish storm in the middle of the Loch, surfable waves emerged in the crystal clear water that made that cold and wet day so memorable.Never before have I paddled or swam in such fresh and clean waters as those, akin to the taste of bottled mineral water. 200 miles to the south of us, down one of the emptiest, best kept and least used roads to date, the Falkirk Wheel provided the next centrepiece of the paddle, including the 10.5km excursion that we put in on the canal, through its 800m long pitch dark hillside tunnel. Thankfully, that night in our exhausted state we enjoyed the hospitality of Falkirk Fire Station, put up for the night by the local brigade in the station quarters. Using their brand new drying room to full extent, we made a swift departure the next morning leaving behind the most dreadful stench from our kit that by now had been wet for over a fortnight.Several hundred miles later found us the guests of some of Pollys relations in Manchester; 5km on the ship canal proved interesting from a cleanliness point of view before we trundled down, weary and tired to Llangollen to cross the famous aqueduct that stood around 130 feet above the River Dee. 2,726 miles complete, and just a few venues left to paddle. So soon and yet so long after we left on the 12th, Polly and I arrived in Cardiff to complete the tour at the British Suf Ski championships. Fletch and Neil had departed that morning to their respective homes, so a last minute replacement of Fletch for a more attractive partner arrived in the form of Luisa, a member of our home club who had just started University in Cardiff. Together we completed the final 10km paddle under the Millennium Stadium to massive interest from the 50 or 60 ski paddlers taking part. A fitting end to what had amounted to nearly three weeks of continuous paddling, promotion and driving. The final milage count would be 2,969 miles driven, and a total of 190km paddled between us. So what next? As we pulled back into Evesham on the night of the 29th September, I was in a state of complete weariness. Whilst we had neither completed as much paddling as we had hoped, nor hit the extreme physical 'burnout' that we had expected, the combination of travelling, paddling, unrest and concentration had all combined to really take it out of us. My feet were blistered raw from being rubbed against sand and board wax. Both of our wetsuits had worn dramatically in some places, and I had trouble for weeks afterwards with overarm movement. Amazingly, neither of us suffered any kind of injury or illness that we would have expected from the type of exercise and the water qualities that we encountered. That would come a few weeks later. As a group of friends and a team, in some respects we gelled extremely well, however in others we perhaps disappointed each other in quite substantial ways. Being cooped up for 3 weeks in a truck and in various rooms, things could have been so much worse and we neither argued nor fell out. The changes in some of our friendships however, would certainly be evident as we departed Cardiff back into reality. Epic our trip had not been, especially in comparison to the massive life-changing challenges that some people put themselves through, but put into perspective, we had all achieved something very special and certainly influential on our own futures.In particular, Fletch and myself, partners in a sporting sense for many years, learned more about each-other in those three weeks than we had ever done so before, changed as we were from our childhood times of rowing into adult individuals perhaps trying to emulate that past spirit. Didn't Bruce Springsteen call that 'The Glory Days'? We had distributed a huge box of water safety leaflets and materials supported by several major charities, and had chatted with and been seen by countless members of the public and volunteer organisations over the three weeks.We had collected 12Gb of professional quality photography, amounting to some 4,250 images. Video-wise, we produced nearly 20 hours of footage, some of it groundbreaking to us in terms of underwater and board-mounted. The experience, still very raw and unreal, was going to be something that would get better for us the more we thought about it. Planning for the use of the media we had so lovingly created was however to be ruined just a few days later. Not a day after I returned home to Loughborough and unloaded everything, ready to start a new job the day after, my house was burgled and every single piece of digital camera equipment that we had for the project vanished, along with it the last 4 hours of video footage from the final three days of the tour. The blow was a bitter one, and even after an extensive media campaign put on by Leicestershire Constabulary, nothing was recovered.The camera equipment would be replaced through insurance, but the footage was lost, along with it the incentive to follow through our work. All of us were mentally exhausted by the effort of the buildup and the tour, by the anticlimax of the finish, by our own private issues and circumstances that would in some cases be changed so much by the project, and now by this theft. Regrettably, the website and the media were shelved after unsaid agreement between us all, until 'easier times'. We had all had enough for a few months and needed a break. That break of some 12 weeks since we returned has seen everything happen to the four of us; new jobs, new homes, family deaths, illnesses, new partners and new challenges. It is only now, on the eve of the New Year, that I feel able to put some life back into this project and push it ahead into 2008. Undoubtedly it will not be what we envisaged some 14 months ago when Polly and I dreamt the idea up in the Flemish village of Ypres. With any luck though, the experience we have all gained, aided by new friends and supporters, will help us to continue to push the boundaries of paddleboarding, and use it to push the message of water safety as far as we can. As Jimmy Nail sang during that trip to Belgium, and countless times since then, 'Memories, just like the seas, live on'.* We wish to thank the following individuals and organisations for their support which made the September trip possible; Malcolm Ball (& all at Snugg Wetsuits), Martin Benetar (Bodyscience UK Ltd), Barney Atkinson (Wraice Ltd), Alan Neighbour, Elaine, Jay and Katie, all at Saunton Sands SLSC, Dave Green, Ryan Doble, Portreath SLSC, Thomas Zachert (Force Field Europe), Dover Watersports Centre, Lee Stampton & family, Dover Rowing Club, Sarah Chapman, Avon Fire and Rescue, Falkirk Fire & Rescue, British Waterways, RNLI Spurn, RNLI Sennen Cove, Corpach Sea Lockmaster, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the Smith family (Poole), Nick Thorn, Thames Navigation, Portishead Lifeboat, Amateur Rowing Association, Cliff Nelson, Anna Walters, Mike Dunn, Adrian Lole, Steve Wills, Danny Bryant, Cameras Underwater Ltd, Chloe Scott (the future Mrs Neil Aldridge), Vicky Jackson, Adrian Mayhew, Jason Mayhew, Malcolm Blacksall, Eddie & Liz Fletcher, Alan & Pat Inett, Simon, Jane and Katie Greenhalgh, Peter Gray, Surfers Against Sewage, SurfAid International, Owen Phillips, Luisa Petta, 'The old guy on the boat on Loch Ness', and all the hundreds of people who waved, shouted, abused, smiled, spoke and encouraged us along the way in September. Very special thanks to Melanie Jefferies and Steve Halstead.

Disclaimer The Board of Europe project is not a water safety education charity. It's purpose is to help raise the awareness of water safety and other relavent education in this field, and then signpost to this through a variety of different and novel ways. The project is also intended to help raise funds to support further development in the educational area. Whilst the Board of Europe project is entirely voluntary, the project team is highly trained in water safety, aquatic rescue and paddleboarding, and as such make their own decisions regarding the activities described or promoted within the project. Every effort is always made to ensure that safety is paramount to the project, however it must be understood that the crew are highly trained and thus may engage in activities that may not be suitable for other people. The Board of Europe project acknowedges the support of a number of other charities, companies, trusts and organisations, however the views, activities, photographs and stories generated by the project are not necessarily representative of these external parties.