Robert Twentyman

Tag: adventure

  • Taking the “Y” off Geography – A Morning on the Solway

    Taking the “Y” off Geography – A Morning on the Solway

    “The word Geography is a noun”

    But take the Y off the end and you end up with something altogether different: a verb, an adjective, still a noun, but above all, a quietly brilliant pastime.

    The Geograph project divides the United Kingdom and Ireland into 1 km by 1 km grid squares, 281,952 of them in total. Of those, 84.9% have been photographed by contributors, leaving 48,760 that remain blank.

    Today, I did my bit to reduce that number ever so slightly.

    The Solway Coast

    There are roughly 200 unphotographed squares along the Solway coast. The easy ones, like car parks, viewpoints and beach access points, were claimed years ago. What is left are the awkward ones: out at sea, cut off by channels, or reachable only when the tide decides to cooperate.

    This morning it did.

    Low tide was forecast at 07:55 with a depth of just 0.83 metres, about 1.2 metres lower than usual. On a coast this flat, that difference exposes vast areas that only exist for an hour or two each month.

    Today’s Adventure

    Armed with a GPX file of every unclaimed square within 30 km of home, I had identified two possibilities: NY0548 and NY0547. I recognised a moderate degree of risk in this, but thankfully I have decent safety kit from my other hobby, sea kayaking.

    I packed a VHF radio, LED beacon, satellite beacon and some boating shoes that would not mind getting wet. Everything went into a bright orange dry bag with a shoulder strap. Even if I ended up swimming, my keys would stay dry.

    I parked at Holme St Cuthbert, as close as possible to where I needed to be, and used my iPhone to guide me along the most direct route through channels, rock pools and mussel beds.

    2.6 km, about 1.6 miles later, at 08:12, I crossed into NY0548. The sea was running along the grid square, though not uniformly. I chose a thin spit of sand, walked along it and then waded out a little way. When I turned around, there was a small section of dry land within the square ready for me to capture. It got deep and cold quickly, but the view back towards the Cumbrian Fells made up for it.

    NY0547 lay 700 metres further, mostly surrounded by water and soft sand. Conscious of the tide beginning to turn, I jogged towards it, taking several more photos from within NY0548 as I crossed.

    I could see ’47 was already starting to disappear. A small area of raised sand remained on the far side of the grid line. I found another sliver of sand, stepped off the end, turned, and captured number two.

    A brisk walk back followed, carefully avoiding the darker, softer patches that signal quicksand. Some of the channels were deeper than they looked. I was glad I had worn shorts, but I would definitely be travelling home sitting on a towel to protect the upholstery.

    I took a quick drive down to Allonby to try for another promising square, NY0644, but I was about an hour too late.

    Back at Holme St Cuthbert, I put the drone up to see where I had been and what might be possible next time.

    The Coastline

    It is a beautiful, difficult place, constantly changing, part land, part sea, rarely still. At low tide, the high points rise like islands; at high tide, they vanish without trace.

    I have been walking and kayaking here for years and still get caught out sometimes, wading back through the channels that were not there an hour earlier. But that is the appeal of the Solway. It never quite reveals itself fully.

    Afterword

    Two new squares photographed, a few minutes of footage captured, and a reminder that adventure does not always require distance. Sometimes it only needs timing, curiosity, and a willingness to get your feet wet.

    Visit my Geograph profile page here 

    Field Kit from This Trip

    Everything I used on the Solway outing — simple, reliable, and tested by mud, tide and mild panic.

    As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. 

    VHF Radio – ICOM IC-M25 Euro EVO Marine VHF Radio

    Small, waterproof, rechargeable. I have used mine for several years, it can easily go a week without losing charge. There’s a reason why most sea kayakers prefer this one. 

    LED Strobe Beacon – Odeo LED distress flare 

    Lives on my shoulder strap; bright enough to get noticed without looking tactical. 

    Satellite Beacon (PLB) – rescueME PLB1 personal locator beacon.  Carried on the fells and permanently in my buoyancy aid at sea, more for peace of mind than anything else. This is the subscription-free kind. 

    iPhone 16 Pro – Used for navigation and most of the footage. Waterproof, tough, simply brilliant. 

    GoPro Hero 12 –  Chest-mounted for hands-free fieldwork and comic realism.

    Drone – DJI Mini 2 SE Compact, stable, affordable and still a brilliant tool 

    Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this piece, I’d love to hear from you — just drop me a comment below.

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  • Leatherman Wave+ Review — After 5 Years of Ownership

    Leatherman Wave+ Review — After 5 Years of Ownership

    Check price on Amazon UK

    TLDR 

    • After 5 years of hard use I still rate this tool very highly
    • I’ve only broken one minor part – the spectacles tool and I got a replacement bit for £5 or so
    • Though you can get cheaper, you probably will not get better, it’s beautifully designed, a pleasure to own and use
    • Be aware not necessarily legal to carry in the UK

    Situation – Why I Needed a Leatherman

    I am one of those people who is constantly fixing, adjusting and generally fiddling with things.   A lot of the time I am working away from my regular tools, having a Leatherman Wave+ with 18 different tools in my pocket is always useful.

    When I bought it 5 years back, I had no idea how practical and durable it would be.  If I lost it, I’d be ordering another one immediately.  

    Specification

    The Leatherman Wave+ is the company’s best-selling multi-tool. It has 18 different functions, can be operated one handed and everything apart from the pliers locks into place (more on that later).

    It is a masterpiece of design. It is pleasant to handle. I have to stop myself opening and closing it because it feels really good when you do.

    Main features include:

    • Long nosed pliers with wire strippers, cutters and a semi-circular serrated cut out for gripping and turning larger objects.

    • Conventional cutting blade (7.42 cm) and a serrated blade for rope, webbing, seat belts etc (this is the most useful tool IMHO)

    • Large flat bladed screwdriver suitable for prying open tins of paint etc. 

    • Nail scissors – good for cutting paper and thin materials.  Can operate one handed

    • Multi use file – diamond carbide on one side and rough metal on the other.  Good for sharpening other tools / blades in the field.  

    • Wood saw blade- only little, good for pruning small branches or cutting through something of approximately finger thickness. 

    • Adaptable Posidrive or flat bladed screwdriver – take the tip out, turn it around plus you can get an accessory set to widen its scope 

    • Spectacles screwdriver (easily snapped, cheap to replace though) 

    • Ruler in centimetres and inches – max 8 inches

    • Can and bottle opener.  The can opener is very good to use – check my video out above.  

    Optional bit set

    Mine came with a webbing sheath, but I chose to get the leather belt sheath instead. I now use the original sheath for the bit kit set.

    My Verdict After Five Years of Daily Use

    I still carry my Wave+ with me most of the time around the house and garden. I feel a bit naked without it.  It is a fantastic bit of kit capable of helping me with an infinite array of problems.

    It has been on all of my sea kayaking trips, usually sitting in a dry bag at the bottom of the kayak. It has been used to fix camping equipment and boats, cut rope, saw branches for firewood, remove a tick from my calf, cut up food, open tins and cut wires.

    Around the house and in the field it has helped me with everything from wiring a plug to, just today, fixing a rotating cake stand for my wife.

    I use the serrated knife most often for opening delivery boxes and cutting rope. Next most useful are the screwdrivers, then the pliers. I have hardly ever used the conventional knife blade, and the only time I tried to use the spectacles screwdriver for a bit of gentle prying it broke.

    My Wave+ has developed a touch of orange rust around the joints. That will be my own fault for using it near the coast. It will come good again with a wipe from an oily rag.

    Mine has had a hard life and it is still in great condition. I was able to get a new spectacles screwdriver blade for only a few quid.  

    Be Careful – Not Automatically Legal to Carry in the UK

    You cannot carry any locking knife in a public place without a good reason.

    Because each blade on the Wave+ locks into place, you need to take care with this. There are plenty of perfectly good and respectable reasons to carry one. Just make sure you have thought about it, as the penalties can be quite severe.

    Verdict

    Five years on, my Leatherman Wave+ has earned its place as one of my most trusted tools. It is solid, clever and endlessly useful, the sort of thing that quietly makes life easier every week.

    See the latest price on on Amazon

    As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. You pay exactly the same price; it does not cost you a penny more.

    I buy all my own gear and write independent reviews. If you found this helpful,buy me a coffee.

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  • Anker Solix C1000 Portable Power Station Battery Storage

    Anker Solix C1000 Portable Power Station Battery Storage

    Check out the latest model on Amazon UK

    TLDR

    • I’ve had my C1000 since May 2025, it has already kept my Starlink and office setup online through 6 power cuts
    • It’s portable and versatile, you can run power tools offgrid or even use it for car boot cooking 
    • There is a newer version on sale, this one is heavily discounted and still more than capable
    • Anker are a high quality brand, you can trust this device not to damage your tech and to withstand normal use. 
    • It has excellent solar integration, you can source your own panel and connect it easily
    • Rapid recharge time from the mains
    • Generous amount of sockets – USB C, USB A, 12v and 240v
    • It won’t run a normal kettle – it trips out at about 2kw but it will run an air fryer or hot chocolate machine easily 
    • If you are in the market for a backup battery / generator definitely put the C1000 on your shortlist, I am very happy with mine. 

    Situation – why we needed the C1000 in our lives:

    We live in a house sat between four fields on the side of a hill in the Lake District. We are 4.5 miles from the closest shop, a similar distance in the other direction from a pub, and right at the end of the line for power supply. We still do not have fibre broadband.

    All of this is great as far as I am concerned – in fact, it’s exactly what we were looking for when we moved here. It does mean we have to be able to take care of ourselves and solve problems on a fairly regular basis.  

    I am a professional remote worker. I do a few different jobs and they all depend entirely on being able to get online and operate IT equipment. I cannot earn without that infrastructure in place.

    It was never really much of a problem until January 2025. Prior to that, we would have the occasional power cut, especially in storms, but by the time I had boiled the kettle on the gas hob, we were up and running again. In January, there was extensive damage to the high-voltage grid in Cumbria, and the recovery teams simply could not get around to all of them. We were off for just under 48 hours. Fortunately, it was at the weekend, so it did not affect work, but we did lose most of our frozen food, and it got us thinking.

    I tried hooking an old camping inverter up to the battery of my Volvo with the engine running. It was enough to get the LED displays of the fridge-freezer to come on, but not the compressor.

    I looked into getting a generator – petrol or diesel. You don’t really get much for less than £1,000, and then you have to keep it somewhere, replenish the fuel to stop it going off, and run it every month to keep it in good condition. It has to be outdoors when running, and not all of them are weatherproof. It’s another engine to service with oil changes, spark plugs, and so on. And the noise.

    I thought about professionally installed house batteries – tempting, as I could benefit from cheap overnight electricity on Octopus. These systems don’t necessarily provide backup power in the event of a cut, and they are certainly not cheap.

    Anyway, spring continued and I forgot about it for a while – until the electricity company wrote to me to say the power would be going off for repairs for the whole of a Monday in May. I made plans to work from my wife’s office. It wasn’t a great day – I felt in the way and I didn’t get much done. So I went back to making my own backup plan. A portable power station made so much sense for what I needed.

    C1000 Specifications:

    The Anker C1000 holds 1056Wh– one kilowatt-hour (kWh), in other words. That’s enough to run a 1kW electric fire for about 50–55 minutes, or a 100W light bulb for around nine hours once you allow for inverter losses. In my case, it’s plenty to run my Starlink setup, laptop, and external screens for seven or eight hours. If I wasn’t running my full complement of office equipment, it would run Starlink for a good 15–18 hours.Alternatively, you could use it to cycle the fridge-freezer every few hours and to run room lighting. If you’re wise with it, that 1kWh can go a long way and make the difference between surviving and being relatively comfortable.

    The C1000 can deliver 1800W continuouslyand up to 2400Wfor a short surge. It can recharge to full in as little as 58 minutes, and the battery technology is good for 3,000 cycles to 80% capacity – roughly ten years of normal use. It has 9 output ports, including two USB-C, two USB-A, four 240V mains sockets, and a 12V car “cigarette lighter” style port. You can charge it from solar panels if you have them, and it will also accept input from a car 12V system. It comes with a car charging lead, some solar adapters, and a 240V mains lead.

    I talked myself into the idea pretty easily in the end – no fuel to worry about, no noise, no maintenance. I also liked the thought of taking it on camping trips – not something you could sensibly do with a generator.

    My Review:

    I have had mine for a year now, so I feel qualified to give it a considered review.

    I have used it “in anger” for six power cuts, one of which lasted 7 hours, it was more than capable of running my work setup. Several of the cuts we’ve had so far were short but featured the power coming off and on again a few times before stabilising – very annoying if your router has to power cycle each time before reconnecting. I found the C1000’s uninterruptible power supply mode very useful here. You plug the C1000 into the mains, turn it on, then plug your router and computer into it, and it prevents any issues when the mains supply flickers.

    I keep the C1000 near our router with a long extension cable next to it. When the power goes off, I plug the router straight in. By the time I’ve run the extension to my computer, the Wi-Fi is back on and I can carry on with my day, only losing a couple of minutes.

    I’ve found quite a few other great uses for it:

    DIY – When doing electrical work with the power off, I can still run my drills, multitools, and lamps from the C1000. Ideal for chasing in new sockets and fault-finding.

    Outdoor DIY – We own a little bit of land, and quite often I need to run a power tool out of range of the house. The C1000 has been more than happy to run drills, cutting tools, and a table saw out and about.  

    Leisure – I’ve run a Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser in the boot of my Volvo and provided hot chocolate to friends. You could easily run an air fryer from it too (though not a normal kettle – they’re 3kW).

    Vehicle / machinery – the 12v “car cigarette lighter” output runs my tyre compressor, very handy if I’ve got more than one tyre to inflate or if I’m pumping up the tyres on my lawn tractor which does not have an outlet.  The compressor draws about 120w and soon takes the edge of the vehicle battery whereas the C1000 drives it hard for as long as you need.  

    I’ve also been experimenting with solar power. I found an old 190W solar panel and was able to get a connector from Amazon for about £15. I was surprised how well it worked – the telematics on the C1000 showed it delivering up to 157W in direct sunlight. A larger 400W panel could recharge the C1000 in around three to five hours of good light. Even my small panel is enough to provide more than I use with my Starlink system and computer.  If I was away camping, I think leaving that set-up would keep us in business for mobile phone and iPad charging for a week easily.

    In normal use, I have it plugged into a smart socket in our wardrobe. I’ve set a reminder on my calendar to charge it up every three months or so, to make sure it’s ready to go when needed. It also means I can flick it on if it seems likely there’ll be a power cut.

    The C1000 has a few other features that I appreciate. There’s a good smartphone app that lets you update the firmware, remotely turn it on, or read its telematics. This is very useful when it’s running, as you can keep an eye on remaining battery power and even the performance of your solar if you have it. I also like that you can set the mains charging speed – I’ve turned mine down to 400W to be gentler on the battery and reduce fan noise. If I was in a hurry, I could turn it up to ultra-fast. I never thought I’d use the built-in LED strip light, but I must admit, it’s been really useful a few times.

    The unit itself is very well designed. It’s heavy, but it has two solid carrying handles at the top. It feels premium, built to last. I note that you can buy an extension battery to double the capacity if needed.

    All considered, I am extremely pleased with my C1000 and I highly recommend it.

    My own device is the first generation C1000, it is no longer on sale so my Amazon UK links will take you to the new model which looks even more impressive.

    As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

    Thank you for reading, I’d love to hear your comments via the box below.