In 2004, on an expedition down the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, Ali Donald and I paddled and became close friends with Kelley Kalafatich. She is an inspiring lady who has paddled in every corner of the world and is one of the most kind-hearted people you could meet.

Since that expedition she has become very unwell and has been paralysed from the waist down. Her fighting spirit is incredible and slowly but surely she is defying medical opinion and we (and she) believe she will walk again. Treatment and care in California doesn’t come cheap, and to enable her to get the best chance possible of real independence and quality of life, she needs the help of her friends.

The “Kelleython” 24-Hour Kayak Challenge

In order to raise money for Kelley’s medical treatment, this November Ali and Rob will paddle from Westport Quay in Co. Mayo, Ireland in oceangoing seakayaks. Facing the north Atlantic in winter, they will try and paddle as far as physically possible for them in 24 hours. They plan to do the first 15 hours without stepping ashore. Given the challenging conditions on the north Atlantic at this time of year, they intend to push themselves to their mental and physical limits to help Kelley.

Please donate whatever you can by clicking on the Paypal button below. 100% of donations will go towards helping Kelley.

Images couresty of Paul Robertson and the Palm Team

The past few months have flown by in a blur of awesome whitewater. April began with a stunning descent of the remote Ahensal river through the wildest parts of the Atlas mountains with Deb Pinniger, Nic Wimsett and the Shackleton Outdoor Program, and then a few days wave sailing in perfect conditions on the coast at Essouira.

May followed with high water, 100+ cumec conditions on the Soca river in Slovenia, one of Europe’s finest, as well as some late season, blue bird snowboarding.

Then came a quick weekend to surf the world famous Bitches wave in South Wales with Rosie, Deb, Olaf, Jens and the Adidas Proteam.

Rob surfing the Bitches Photo: Jens Klatt

Then off to the Alps again, for some incredible late season paddling in Italy, and a superb month of high water kayaking and mountain biking in the French Alps.

Colin Wong on the Fournel

Colin Wong on the Guardian Angel Gorge

An incredible few months of quality whitewater and fun times on the river. The next few weeks will be spent on the Mediterranean coast continuing my ongoing mission to learn how to wave sail, followed by a few weeks in Norway in August.

After leaving Kathmandu we started off on the Upper Bhote Kosi as a warm up before heading to do one of the last complete descents of the legendary Marsyandi river, two days of perfect Himalayan whitewater.

The dam looks to be almost 100% complete, and so the middle section will probably be gone within the year. A terrible shame.We spent a day in Paudi hanging out with a local farmer’s family which was a pretty cool experience.

After heading to Pokhara we met our buddy Babu and paddled the Seti. Babu has been paragliding less than a year, and is just back from a ten day solo paragliding mission around the Khumbu glacier ie Everest, which is probably akin to soloing the class 5 Murchison Falls section of the White Nile with less than a years kayaking experience. He wanted us to go paragliding with him. We declined.

We then took a 24 hour bus ride to the wild west of Nepal and the incredible Karnali river, one of the worlds most spectacular and beautiful.

Rosie and I spent four amazing days on the Karnali, far from civilisation with leopards, eagles and monkeys abundant.

We also paddled some awesome whitewater given that we were just two people in heavy boats a long way from the nearest road. At the end of the trip, we paddled into Bardia National Park which is famous for, among other things, its tigers. I stayed very close to the middle of the river. Rosie, whose grandfather was a tiger hunter, seemed much less concerned. Nevertheless, I was relieved when we reached the Tigertops tented camp where we spent the next day on elephant safari.

After an epic journey back to Pokhara, we met Siberian boater Vasiili Porsev and hiked up to the Madi Khola, which we completed in less than three hours from high up due to a very real fear of missing our flight home.

Vasiili is a strong boater who has been pushing hard on the rivers of Siberia, and invited us to come visit. Hopefully we can take him up on that offer in the future. I slept soundly on the roof of a nightbus back to Kathmandu by strapping myself onto the roof rack, and we just made our flight back to London. Arriving home I met some friends in Dublin, turned the big 30, and jumped on a flight to Marrakech for a mission in the Atlas mountains.

Photos by Rosie Cripps and Rob Coffey

Team Palm Promo film preview

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Some photos of the Palm Pro Team in action shot by Deb Pinniger and Sam Hughes:

Green Race winner Andrew Holcombe, Dave Carroll and Paul Cheesy Robertson prepare for some steepness on the Upper Onde

Matt Tidy on the Lower Rauma

Andy Holcombe in France

Rosie Cripps getting on the Lower Rauma

Simon Hirter on the Lower Rauma

The Palm film will be ready for distribution in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned for more details.

Posted by Rob Coffey

It was great to hook up with many old friends and get some world class boating in at the same time.

Rob on the Etive
Tom Brown
15 year old Rory O Reilly charging the Etive
The one and only Jamie Wright landing a back hammer

All photos by Rosie Cripps

Ten days ago, I decided to leave Dublin on a last minute decision to head west for the weekend, hoping to catch some waves.
I ended up in the coastal village of Kilkee with Louis Smith and Triona Price and caught the last acts of the Cois Farriage Music festival.
As there was no surf on Saturday, we spent the day scuba diving with a school of up to forty dolphins. Deep underwater, surrounded by these magnificent animals almost so close you could almost touch them, was a special experience.

That night, we very randomly ended up going to see the suprisingly good Ocean Colour Scene. The next morning, no surf to be found, so we teamed up with my long term wing man and veteran of numerous ill conceived adventures, Ali Donald, to sea kayak from Liscannor to Doolin around the world famous Cliffs of Moher. On a big westerly swell this is where the massive wave known as ‘Aileens’ breaks.
Myself and Ali are hatching a plan to come back over the winter and kayak this stretch of coast in big swell, which would be more exposed and full on than any river.

All the following week I had been watching the swell charts for the weekend. From the forecast, Easkey looked liked it would be catching a huge northerly. We drove like demons to Easkey, pulling in at two in the morning. After a few hours sleep, we woke at first light to see the biggest waves I had seen in ten years of surfing this spot. The largest sets were breaking over the pier. I spent two hours surfing some of the biggest, most intimidating waves of my life, not least because for the first few hours, I was the only person on the water. I took off too deep and got caught inside on one particularly big set, and had a real ‘o shit’ moment.

These waves are very far away from where this photo was taken

By midday the wind had swung westerly and the swell had dropped, so it was time to head to Achill island on the remote western tip of Ireland for a wave sailing competition, which is rapidly becoming my new obsession. Achill takes the full brunt of the fury of the Atlantic, and the weather is often so bad that it gives the impression of being on a boat. But the sun appeared on Sunday, and we windsurfed for hours in the most perfect conditions. I am not yet good enough to wave sail but intend to be in the near future.

This weekend I am being dragged away from the west coast to go steep creeking in the Scottish highlands.

Photos by Dani Domeque, Louis Smith and Rosie Cripps

The Teva Race has become ever more competitive, whereas before, it was possible to turn up not having done any training and achieve a decent result, the top guys are now training hard specifically for the event and it shows. Rosie came 5th overall and 2nd in the Extreme slalom.

Rosie on her way to 2nd in the Extreme Slalom

Pat Keller going for it

France was awesome, cruisy and clean paddling. The highlight was definately a high water run down the Ubaye gorge with Dave Carroll, which had more push in there than usual.

And what to say about Norway: other than it rained constantly more or less the whole time I was there. Myself, Sam Hughes, Mikela Ramazza and another Italian ran Amot Gorge at a stupidly high level. Once in the gorge, which I hadn’t scouted, we couldn’t get out and the river was insane.

After that I had some good runs on the usual classics with Killian Kelly and the rest of the Irish lads, such as the Upper Jori and Finna. Sam and I did a slideshow of our India mission at the Sjoafest. I helped out in the massive recovery operation of the Russian rafters on Ausangjuvet, two of whom unfortunately drowned. A sad day for all involved, but it was great to see all the Sjoa locals pull together so well. After the accident I was amazed to see journalists wandering around the campsite where the Russians were staying, taking photos of them grieving. I also found myself quoted in a Norwegian newspaper as telling the Russians that the Sjoa “was very dangerous” due to the high levels. They quoted me accurately, but it goes to show how careful you must be in dealing with the media if ever involved, even remotely, in an accident.
Myself, Dave Carroll, Sam, Kim, Tim Trew, Nick Horwood, Killian Kelly and Irish Dave did an excellent Whitewater Safety Technician course with Jann at the Sjoa Kayak School. It is specifically tailored to whitewater paddlers and was by far the best course of its nature I have ever done. I cannot recommend this course enough. All in all a great trip, if somewhat waterlogged. I am now in Wales and have just finished a solo mission to climb all 15 3000ft peaks in North Wales. Next week I am doing a coastal skipper course, then back to France for a while.

All photos by Sam Hughes and Rosie Cripps

Bryan Smith’s 49 Megawatts

The Coruh, Zanskar, Arandal Pradesh, White Nile, Baktiari……all will be gone as we know them in ten years.

Thoroughly depressing that through short sightedness and greed we will be the last generation to enjoy many of the world’s last untouched places. It makes me so mad.