Interview: Peter Tranter
Photos: Michal Madera,
Julie Perren,
Nicky Mansell and
Sarah Hollingworth
Katie Carr
‘Moderate Becoming Good Later’
‘Moderate Becoming Good Later: Sea Kayaking, the Shipping Forecast’ by Katie and Toby Carr, will be published on June 8th.
A chat with… Katie Carr
My name is Katie Carr; I’m 45 and live in Barcelona. I’m in Paddler magazine because I’ve written a book about my brother Toby’s adventures around the Shipping Forecast in a sea kayak, ‘Moderate Becoming Good Later’. Toby and my other brother Marcus were born with a genetic illness, Fanconi Anaemia and knew from a young age that they would be lucky to reach 30. Neither of them made a big thing about this, and the chances are if you met Toby paddling, you would know nothing about the challenges his illness threw at him. He just got on with things and enjoyed life.
Fanconi Anaemia eventually caught up with both brothers: Marcus died in 2017 and Toby in 2022. Between those two years, I had my two boys and was thrown into the unfamiliar territory of parenting, and Toby set himself the challenge of kayaking in all areas of the shipping forecast. He hoped it could help him deal with Marcus’s loss and inspire others to get outside and challenge themselves despite their limitations.
Tell us a little about Toby’s book and why he took on the challenge of the many sea paddles featured in the book.
After about five years of sea kayaking, Toby started cruising for a larger kayaking adventure, his good friends Natalie Maderova and Michal Madera had kayaked around Britain, and others had been on more exotic expeditions, but it was Marcus’s death which cemented his decision to set himself the challenge to kayak in all the areas of the shipping forecast.
Our dad Mike was a keen sailor, so we grew up listening to the shipping forecast (although, for me, it is heavily associated with dismal weather and waves slamming into the hull of the small catamaran we sailed on). Like many of us, Toby was intrigued by what the places behind the poetically named sea areas are like and decided to find out.
Toby started his book because, in his own words, he felt he was on borrowed time – was it always the plan for you to finish the book if Toby couldn’t?
No, we never even spoke about it: finishing the book or living on borrowed time. It wasn’t until October 2021 that Summerdale Publishers accepted the idea for the book based on a proposal which included three chapters. Toby was quite ill by then and knew it would be hard to write any more. His friends in Cornwall held a sea-themed party for him shortly after he signed the contract, but Toby was reluctant to celebrate. It was a tough time; at last, he had an opportunity to tell his story to a broader audience but no longer had the energy to write it. I, like others, offered to help transpose voice notes or sit with him to get it down, but even for someone as eternally hopeful as Toby, it was hard to reconnect with the high points of his life from the darkness of a rapidly progressing terminal cancer.
We briefly discussed the book during our stay with him over the Christmas holidays. By this time, he was taking some special steroids, which helped him recover some of his hope for the future. It wasn’t until the 3rd of January 2022 that he wrote again, capturing his joy at being able to go out for a short paddle on the Fal on New Year’s day. He sent me the account by mail entitled “Writing – a start! I’m not sure it’s book material,” he said, “but it’s nice to write again.” I read it on the long journey back to Barcelona through France. Less than a week later, I was on a flight racing to catch him before he died.
The week following his death, I found his hand-written notes and a half-organised hard disk drive. It was so clear that he wanted his story to be told, and at a time when there was little I could do for him, writing the book seemed like something important. It was a massive challenge for me. I teach storytelling, worked for many years in communication and have had articles published in prestigious publications (under other people’s names), but I’d never written a book, and I had never been in a sea kayak.
Our aunt and uncle, Nicky and Kevin Mansell, fielded many of my kayaking-specific queries (such as what a bongo slide is), as did good friends of Toby’s, Sarah Hollingworth and Owen Rutter. Toby never intended the book to be a sea kayaking book but rather for it to be about life and nature viewed from the unique perspective of a sea kayak. The vivid descriptions he wrote in his notes helped me recreate this feeling.
How are you approaching the challenge?
Firstly, by being honest with myself, as a new paddler, my version of the challenge will be very different from Toby’s. Toby would no doubt have circumnavigated Ireland, paddled out to Rockall Rock (with Michal) and then probably crossed to Portpatrick to continue up the Scottish coast. I obviously can’t do that.
Toby showed us in life (and I hope this comes across in the book) that we are all operating within our own set of limitations (in his case, these were health and work-related, in mine, they are to do with being a rubbish kayaker, living in another country and have two young kids) but we can all ask, “What’s possible from here?”
The challenge Toby set himself back in 2017 was to have kayaked in all areas of the shipping forecast. For him, that translated into expeditions over months, paddling large distances (sometimes the entire coastlines of the sea area) and dealing with challenging seas. He pushed the boundaries of what he thought was possible and inspired even the most seasoned sea kayakers. I don’t expect to do any of that. I learnt many years ago that trying to compete with Toby on anything was a bad idea.
To complete the challenge, my aim is to do one or more day paddles in each of the remaining sea areas, accompanied by a seasoned paddler or a group of paddlers. My trip won’t win awards or be recorded in the great tomes of sea kayaking achievements, yet it will be an adventure and an accomplishment for me. And maybe, it will show that we can all find adventures that fit us (even with kids and responsibilities in tow).
Toby didn’t finish the shipping Forecast; why do you feel you must complete the paddles that Toby couldn’t?
I spent a year at my desk, reading Toby’s notes and writing about his adventures in the first person; by the end of that, I was dying to get on the water, be out in nature, and get back to doing things in my own voice. Toby said he hoped, “The book would encourage others to find and have their own adventures.” I’ve had many adventures (none in a kayak), but as a mum of two young boys, that side of me has been on pause for the last six years. I don’t feel like I have to finish Toby’s challenge; I feel like I want to.
So you will paddle the remaining sea areas; what’s your plan?
There are ten sea areas with land that Toby didn’t visit as part of the project or marked as partially completed: Lundy, Irish Sea, Fastnet, Shannon, Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Tyne, Cromarty, Forth and Fair Isle. Then there are four that have no land (Viking, Forties, Dogger and Bailey), which I will not be attempting. Toby was discussing oil rigs and helicopters to get out in these, but I think the challenge is big enough for me as it is.
If you know your shipping forecast, you’ll see that Toby has left me the wild west: all the Irish, Scottish and Welsh areas plus a bit of northeast England, and I have divided these over the next year and a bit. This year I will paddle in Wales, Ireland and part of Scotland. Next, I will see me launching the kayak in northeast England and east Scotland and finishing in the Shetland Isles just before or after the symposium (in case anyone wants to join me).
Toby loved how the shared interest in kayaking connected him with others, and (aside from the fact that it’s dangerous for me to paddle alone) the idea behind the challenge has always been to get more people involved. I hope these paddles can be a way for Toby’s friends and acquaintances to remember him while doing something he loved.
So where and when will you be paddling?
I picked Toby’s kayak up from Cornwall at the end of February. My challenge started in Lundy in early March with a paddle in the Bristol Channel from Clevedon to Portishead and back led by Katie Wiltshier of the Avon Outdoor Activities Club and accompanied by other members of the club and some of Toby’s closest friends, Owen and Sarah (mentioned above).
Then in mid-May I paddled in Pembrokeshire, Wales with Dave Elkington and Mike Mayberry, respectively, before going to Anglesey to meet Al Randall, Lindsey Harris and others from Toby’s ex-club in London, Tower Hamlets Canoe Club.
In June/July, I will spend three weeks in Ireland with my boys, squeezing in seven or eight paddles which I’m still in the process of defining. I’m the newest Irish Sea Kayaking Association member and hope to attend a meet they are organising in Schull and connect with kayakers there to help me put the trips together.
Finally, this year, I’ll be kayaking in the Hebrides for a week at the end of August with my aunt, Nicky Mansell, of Jersey Canoe Club. I hope to coincide with Nick Ray’s return home after a year paddling around Scotland which he dedicated to Toby. As for the rest, I’ll be planning that later. I might even be a better kayaker by then; who knows!
You’re new to kayaking – do you not feel intimidated by the challenge?
In general, I don’t find myself intimidated by it. Firstly, I feel like I’ve faced harder things: researching and writing the book, watching my brothers die of cancer or sorting out Toby’s house after he died, for example. Secondly, I’m quite realistic about what I can and can’t do and the risks involved. I don’t feel like I have anything to prove, so I won’t go out if it’s too windy or rough. Having said this, I’ve never been that good at asking for help and hate being dependent, so I’m uncomfortably overcoming these while also learning to kayak.
I already wake up in the middle of the night worrying about certain aspects of kayak moving and storing logistics, but I feel like despite the many problems to solve, I can find a way to overcome them.
Who is coaching and teaching you?
I’m lucky to be learning to kayak in the clear waters of the Costa Brava north of Barcelona. There’s a great kayak school called Traumuntana Kayak in Palamós, and Marc Martin and Anton Kuhn offer training sessions, paddles and swimming pool rolling sessions on weekends. I’m there if I can make it (read, convince my partner to deal with the kids).
The idea has always been to learn along the way as well. Since I’m kayaking with experienced paddlers and coaches, they have helped me to correct my technique and learn new tricks. Nicky Mansell was instrumental in getting me out in a sea kayak for the first time in January and introduced me to different strokes. Julie Perrin helped me pick up Toby’s kayak in Cornwall and introduced me to edging in a short paddle on the Fal before I took it up to Bristol. As did Mike, Katie and Dave from the Avon Club helped me get better. The challenge is for me to keep track of the recommendations and work on them.
What was it that Toby loved about kayaking?
There was so much that Toby loved about kayaking that it’s difficult, to sum up here. Some things were the closeness to nature, connection to other kayakers, solitude, space for reflection and the challenge of some tougher conditions.
What do you find to be the most challenging part of learning to sea kayak?
I am not being as good as I’d like and getting frustrated. After a year of writing in Toby’s voice about kayaking, I think I convinced myself I was an excellent kayaker, only to find that, outside of my imagination, I have a long way to go to even call myself a kayaker at all.
More specifically, I didn’t imagine there being so much hip movement involved in kayaking, and it sometimes feels like I’m trying to learn dance moves, which I’ve never been very good at. I understand the theory of what I should be doing (more technique and less force, for example), but that gets lost in translation when I try to get my body to do it.
The one saving grace is that I feel comfortable on the sea. Having grown up sailing and done dinghy sailing as an adult, I can face it with appreciative respect rather than outright fear.
How have you managed your grief with the passing of your two brothers, Marcus and Toby?
By writing a book! I’m a Trained Expressive Arts Therapist, and before writing the book, I was well-versed in using the arts as a kind of holder for emotions that are difficult or limiting to keep inside all the time. I lost my mum to mental illness when I was 11 (although she is still alive), my dad died in 2010, and then both of my brothers; if there is one thing I’ve learnt about loss, it is that it never really goes away, we can just learn to live with it better.
For me staring grief down in researching the book, listening to Toby’s voice recordings or reading his writing in notebooks that still smelled of him was hard, but I just kept going. As I filled in the gaps in his trip that I hadn’t heard about first-hand, I began to feel like I was getting some extra time with him after he died, being brought along with him on his adventures at some of the best times in his life. I hope the final book does this for readers who know him.
One thing I’ve observed in myself and others when facing grief is that we often desire to change things in a big way after a loved one dies. We can’t all switch jobs and move to another city, as I did when my dad died, or start a family as I had just done when Marcus died, but we can choose to create something. That something could be a book, it could be an adventure, or it could be something else.
Do you plan to keep kayaking after completing your challenge, and where?
I’m trying to stay focused on this challenge and developing my skills, but I expect to continue kayaking afterwards because it’s such a nice thing to do!
Spain has plenty of coastline to explore, so I’d probably start there. One evening, it did occur to me that if I completed the Spanish sea areas in the Mediterranean, plus the Skagerrak and the Baltic, Together Toby and I would have kayaked in all the sea areas in Europe. But I think there will have been enough bagging sea areas by then; it will probably be nice to launch the kayak from the closest beach and appreciate being in the wonderful space where the sea meets the land, and only kayakers can revel in.
Do you have a dream paddling destination and where would it be, and why does it flick your switch?
As you can imagine, I’ve spent a fair bit of time recently looking at Ireland via Google Earth. There’s one place called Clew Bay that is just in the Rockall Sea area, and it looks amazing with hundreds of tiny islands to weave in and out of all bright emerald green, with mountains in the distance. It might be a total pain regarding tidal planning, and the chances are that when I get there, the weather won’t be as good as in the photos, but I’m looking forward to it.
Quickies…
What one luxury item would you take with you on a desert island?
I’ve got a posh Kindle which is light, waterproof and has a cellular connection from anywhere. It’s not a luxury, but I’d be fine with a universe of books at my fingertips on a desert island (although a good knife would perhaps be helpful).
Which one sports person has inspired you?
Toby Carr 😉
Are you a bathroom/shower singer, and if so, what do you sing?
Not really. With two young boys, I rarely get to have a shower on my own and never have time to sing in it. I do like to sing in the car, though. I’ve got a few Jazz standards up my sleeve, so it’s a way of practising them in case an impromptu performance is required, perhaps on a secluded-only-accessible-by-kayak beach sometime.
An ideal night out for you is?
Good friends, interesting conversations, an outside bar with nice music, fresh food, cocktails, and dancing before 11 pm. Home early enough and sober enough to deal with the kids at 7 am the next day.
What would you prepare for us if we came to your house for dinner?
Probably a selection of tapas and Spanish seafood I’ve learnt to make in my 20 years in Spain.
What’s in your fridge right now?
A bottle of Pol Roger waiting to celebrate finishing the book, which I never quite get to open because there is always something else that needs doing for it.
Who are your kayaking/canoeing/SUP buddies?
I’ve been lucky to have inherited a bunch of kayaking friends from Toby, who have been encouraging and supportive; I’ve mentioned quite a few of them here already. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to paddle with them all over the next two years. Some will join parts of the trip, others I’ll see on the Thames in June for a book publication paddle or in Jersey in September for the Festival of Words, where I’ll talk about the book.
What three words would you use to describe you?
Determined, creative, resourceful.
If you could be a wild animal – what would it be?
I should probably choose an aquatic one, but the first one that comes to mind is a toucan. I was lucky to spend some years working in Costa Rica and loved seeing these playful birds enjoying their jungle paradise. Kayaking gives you a different perspective on land and life; I expect flying would too.
What do you get angry about?
Brexit.
Any final shout-outs to friends, supporters and sponsors?
There are several pages of acknowledgements at the end of the book, so I won’t mention all that here. To the readers here, I realise it might be a bit annoying to see me becoming, as Natalie put it, “A well-known-non-kayaking-sea kayaker.” Thanks for suspending your judgment and reading anyway. Go and get hold of a copy of ‘Moderate Becoming Good Later’. It’s about some proper kayaking!
