Gear
Gear manufacturers have realised that lots of women like the outdoors and they're different shapes from men. Here's what's out there, and where you can buy it.
Justine Curgenven - sea kayaker and film maker
Lots of people think sea kayaking involves putting a few paddle strokes in on glassy water, maybe with a dolphin or two in the background. You can chat to friends, pull up at a beach and there’s so much room in the hatches that you can bring a bottle of wine and the cheese board.
This is not how Justine Curgenven sea kayaks - or at least not all of the time. Justine is a sea kayaker and filmmaker, the power behind the sea kayaking DVDs ‘This is the Sea 1, 2, 3 and 4’. These DVDs show sea kayaking in a completely 
different light - the paddlers surf enormous standing waves, duck in and out of caves in pounding swell, go on huge expeditions to remote places and seem to spend a fair amount of time upside down. The DVDs are a completely different way of looking at sea kayaking and Justine's filming is spectacular - her footage has been shown on the BBC and National Geographic Channel and it has won her an award at the most prestigious adventure film festival, the Banff Mountain Film Festival. To see some of Justine’s footage and for a sneak preview of the This is the Sea DVDs, you can visit Justine’s website at CackleTV.
Justine lives in Wales, is 35 years old and started kayaking 12 years ago with a local canoe club. When she was at university Justine loved team sports and represented England in hockey, only discovering walking, mountain biking and kayaking when she left university. She started a career in television at about the same time she discovered kayaking, and she soon gave up her job to pursue sea kayaking adventures and film them to make a living. This turned out to be quite difficult for the first four years - people refused to believe that sea kayaking could be exciting - but once they saw the film they changed their mind! There are now four films in the series and people are asking when the next one comes out.
Justine is an avid and accomplished sea kayaker
herself and has explored many of the world’s best paddling spots - New Zealand, Newfoundland, Norway, Tasmania, the Queen Charlotte Islands, Alaska, California...the list goes on! She has had some pretty amazing adventures, including being arrested by soldiers in Russia and seeing humpback whales a few hundred metres from her kayak in Alaska. At home in North Wales she likes to surf in the tidal races and paddle around the cliffs.
Justine was part of the first all-female team to circumnavigate Tasmania. They were away for 6 weeks and paddled for 37 days, which snows how physically demanding the trip was. The weather conditions in Tasmania can be rough and challenging - Justine says that there was an average swell of 6.5m around the south-west coast which made paddling and landing very difficult. Still, the team was successful, the expedition was filmed by Justine and is part of ‘This is the Sea 2’.
Justine films from her kayak using specialised equipment, which also means that she is right there in the action with the paddlers. She is thrilled that her work is her play, and that she has found a profession that allows her to go on long kayaking expeditions and other adventures. When she’s home she likes bike riding, climbing and being in the mountains - and gardening, baking and preserving! Her films are an inspiration to all kayakers out there, regardless of whether you like glassy water or enormous waves - look out for them, and for Justine and her crew on your next paddling trip.