Hello! I'm James and I'm currently part-way though a 3000-mile sea kayak adventure around the coast of Britain, raising money for two charities. The National Maritime Museum Cornwall held a launch party in April to mark the beginning of the trip, and I hope to make it back to the museum in Falmouth by mid-September.

The fundraising target is a pretty daunting £20,000, to be split equally between WaterAid and the NACC (National Association for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease). I chose the NACC because my sister Emma was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in 2008 at the age of 19. Joe Andrews started the expedition in April, but since early June I have been paddling solo; Joe’s chosen charity was Wateraid, though I’m still supporting both. For details of NACC and WaterAid, what they do and how your money will help their vital work, check out the details on the Charities page. This is an expensive bit of fundraising for us to undertake, but NONE of your donations are being taken cover any of the costs of the expedition, so please feel confident about donating as generously as you can.

I’ll keep the website updated with photos and blog entries to let you know how things are going. There’s also an interactive tracker feature on the “Latest” page of the website; this picks up GPS signals from the boat so you can see in much more detail where I am. The blog can be accessed in full through the link on the “Latest” page, or also more specifically by clicking on the red dots on the map for each day individually.

Feel free to browse around the site to find out more, and if you’d like to get in touch with us it’d be great to hear from you – you can do this either directly on the Say Hello page (via email), or by leaving a comment on the blog.
About James

Having grown up in Cornwall I spent a lot of my childhood in the open air, and I have always held a passion for being outdoors. Although there is so much more to Cornwall than just the beaches – all the fantastic moors, woods and rolling countryside – inevitably I spent a lot of time on the coast. With many a day spent either messing about in the surf, or simply gazing out to sea, this year I’ve decided to go out and spend a bit of time looking back the other way, to see the land from the sea: to see the places I feel I know so well from another perspective.

In my early years I never really settled on a single interest. I could usually be found on a hockey pitch, on my bike, bodyboarding, orienteering or simply walking in the hills – basically anything which got me outside into the fresh air. Alternatively I’d be playing music, building things in the garage or sometimes doing a bit of work.

Then at university I discovered kayaking. Since then I’ve been on white water trips to various countries around Europe, played a bit of canoe polo, occasionally tried my hand at slalom, and swapped body-boarding for surf-kayaking.

I have planned to kayak around the west side of the Isle of Skye, rather than to go up through the Sound of Sleat, which is on the more sheltered east side of Skye. For me, having previously cycled the length and breadth of Britain, the aim was to paddle around everywhere to which it is possible to drive – or cycle – even if this meant going a little further than the traditional route, which would involve going under the Skye Bridge. The circumnavigation has been on my list of things to do for a few years, and now seems as good a time as any to get on with it!