Renowned sea kayaker and author Brian Wilson is joined by ex-footballer Michael Stewart in this Adventure Show special to recreate one of the great pioneering journeys of Scottish sea kayaking. The original paddlers wrote up their adventures in a book called 'The Canoe Boys: The First Epic Scottish Sea Journey by Kayak' (Amazon £26.54). We looked at here, Book Review: The Canoe Boys.
80 years ago Alastair Dunnett and Seumas Adam set off from Glasgow in 1934 to paddle round the West coast of Scotland from Crinan to Skye. With so little experience, many thought they'd never negotiate Scotland's most notorious waters in their homemade Lochaber canoes, but the friends proved everyone wrong.
Junior journalists at the time, they funded their trip by writing about their adventures. Their exploits caught the nation's imagination and they became known simply as the Canoe Boys.
Eight decades on and ex professional footballer Michael, an inexperienced paddler, takes up the same challenge with the assistance of expedition paddler and authour Brian Wilson, using replica boats made by apprentices at the Scottish Boat Building School.
It's a steep learning curve for Michael who hasn't been in a canoe since he was a boy. With his strength and endurance is tested to the limit, frustrations rise to the surface, as does some seasickness!
With stunning scenery and poignant recollections from the original trip, there's input from Dunnett's son Ninian and Adam's daughter Ailish, both immensely proud of their fathers' achievements. We also meet Duncan McGilp, now 90, who recalls standing on the quayside at Tobermory as an eight-year-old boy to welcome the original Canoe Boys to Mull.
The book written by the original paddlers is 'The Canoe Boys: The First Epic Scottish Sea Journey by Kayak' (Amazon £26.54).
Brian Wilsons books are Dances with Waves: Around Ireland by Kayak (Amazon £11.56), and Blazing Paddles: a Scottish Coastal Odyssey (Amazon £3.50).
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By Philip Clegg
With over two decades of working in the sea kayaking industry, Phil can be found on a daily basis coaching on the sea around Anglesey. That's when he's not researching and writing on all things sea kayaking.