Moderate Becoming Good Later: Sea Kayaking the Shipping Forecast

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The remarkable variety of those coastal areas and challenges faced to traverse them, have been beautifully distilled.

Informative, humorous and emotional, it left me feeling sad but also really inspired and motivated to tackle my own adventure, what ever the size! The perfect book for our times: from tragedy and stormy seas, come hope, connection, and elemental awe. But I got tired of being thrown from one place to the other, sometimes multiple ones in one paragraph (especially in the last chapters) like all he was doing was kayaking as fast as he could and not stopping to admire where he was which I know wasn't true.No stranger to weathering a storm after living with a rare life-limiting condition and facing the death of his brother, avid kayaker Toby Carr set out to explore the areas of the Forecast. And I say "armchair" because I was very happy to just read this one, with all its thrills and spills, without feeling the need to go and do it myself. He mentions his late brother and a few friends a few times but I wanted to know more about his life and what he was feeling in certain moments. I loved this book - the storytelling is magical the images and environments it paints so vividly are beautiful.

There is something special about people experiencing loss who decide to make the most of life while they still have the opportunity. Toby's story of seizing life's opportunities despite obstacles should inspire all of us to not let life pass us by. Moderate Becoming Good Later is a wonderfully salty adventure, a quixotic odyssey driven by equal parts grit and good humour around the stormy shores of western Europe. Throughout, Katie Carr has imbued Toby’s account with a natural charm, which combined with sublimely evocative descriptions, effortlessly transports the reader deep into the maritime environment. Toby's outrageously fearless spirit and good humour will not fail to uplift and spur you on to pursue your own adventures.A manifesto for living, loving and laughing full-heartedly, whatever life's storms and forecasts bring. Exceptionally beautiful and moving, a book that conjures connection to people, places and the ocean with the immediacy, grace and clarity of a kayak cutting through sea spray. The ending is moving even though I knew it was coming I was rooting for a different ending for Toby. No stranger to weathering a storm after living with a rare life-limiting condition and facing the death of his brother, avid kayaker Toby set out to explore the areas of the Forecast whilst he still could. On a journey that took him to stormiest and most tranquil stretches of our seas, he found stories behind the familiar names and imagined environments of the well-loved BBC broadcast.

A lovely read and the language and way it is written was a pleasure to read - given the first three chapters were Toby’s and then it was continued by his sister - she really did him proud and an amazing job - as the reader you wouldn’t know it had switched and I felt I was fully with Toby until the last chapters. It is all about one man who goes sea kayaking, I never imagined how I would be so captured with this story but it is so engaging and I didn't want to stop reading. From the wildness and the peace of the sea, looking back at the land, Toby hoped to gain the strength and balance he knew nature could provide and to discover the things that anchor us to each other. It was at this point that I realised I had become too heavily involved in Toby’s adventure and life, the last chapters were some of the hardest things I’ve ever read, I knew it was coming but just didn’t expect to get hit so hard.At the beginning of this adventure Toby didn’t know that he would die before he completed it, but the death of his brother and having a life limiting condition drove him to grab life by the proverbial horns. Thrilling and moving in equal parts, it should inspire us all to get out into the world and embrace its beauty. Courageous, uplifting and exquisitely written, Moderate Becoming Good Later is a tale of the indefatigable resilience of the human spirit, the unbreakable bond of family, the life-affirming kindness of strangers and the perpetual freedom of exploring the unknown.

An incredible read of adventure and life that will draw you in and inspire you to pursue your own journeys. The sort of adventure I've often dreamed of late at night, with additional layers of poignancy and love.Yet beyond the exotic locations, the narrative is most compelling as we are drawn to find something of ourselves in this odyssey. Written by his sister Katie from Toby's extensive notes and recordings, Moderate Becoming Good Later is both an epic adventure – sometimes choppy, constantly moving – and a personal voyage of discovery that includes old friends and new, plenty of wildlife, and the ever-present sea. And to create a lasting legacy to an explorer, an adventurer, brother, friend, colleague is the most beautiful gift to the memory of an intrepid, incredible man. Lots to learn and some amazing places visited and it has definitely spurred me to want to see more of the world once more and live for the moment.