The level looked good at the get in, but things felt very weird at the start as I was paddling my K1 playboat for the first time in a very long while. I was more used to the stability of the big boat, or the extra leverage of the C1.
The water was flowing very fast, and we had 1 or 2 issues with low trees. Most of the usual playspots on the run were washed through and not at all retentive, but there were still enough spots to play on. One of the first we came across had low hanging vines in the middle of it, which made things quite interesting.
We had 1 incident early on with a swimmer in a tree, although luckily he washed straight through it, but not before I cut my leg hopping the barbed wire fence - at least that's the worst thing that happened there.
Further down myself and Niall found a very nice retentive wave and practised our flat-spins and roundhouses. I tried a cross-bow pirouette, but realised it is a lot easier in the C1 as I splatted on my face.
At the final weir Wilson capsized, and when attempting to roll took a hell of a beating with rocks. He swam from the boat, but the river turned into a tight twisty mess of low trees. Luckily he got out quite quickly, and after a few minor dramas I managed to pin his boat in a tree for easy retrieval. His paddle did not survive though, but hopefully will reappear when the water levels go down.
Once we got sorted, I gave him my paddle for the short 5mins to the finish and decided to do a spot of hand paddling. As we got off a promising shower of heavy rain came on - roll on tomorrow
No comments:
Post a Comment