River Roe - 12 March 2011

Today I had planned to go surfing.

Then unfortunately it rained last night, so instead I wanted some proper paddling and went to the Roe with some of the guys from LCP.

On the drive up, we started to pass lots of snow on the ground around the Glenshane pass. At the get in, the beach was half covered which meant it was going to be a nice average level. This didn't account for the snow that was melting. The river level rose quite a bit while we were on which made for a very fun trip.

We didn't actually spend too much time playing at any of the weirs, there was too much exciting stuff around the corner.

Halfway down the river we came to the Dogs Leap. After having a quick look, most of us decided to run it. This is normally a tricky run in through a narrow constriction, but the high water levels removed this hazard, but still left a big and bouncy run through.

From this point down things just got better. Most of the river from this point is all natural, with big water and boulders providing lots of fun.

The last man-made weir was different to any other time I had paddled it. Two big holes were protecting the only lines of interest, which just meant it would be more challenging.

I decided on the most difficult line, which was tricky in the Spanish Fly due to my lack of speed and inability to correct the 2 paddle strokes I had time for through it. This just mde it even more fun.

A good clean run down one of my favourite rivers in the north. I really need to paddle this more often.

Shaws Slalom - 6 March 2011

Sunday saw one of the first slalom competition since the redevelopment of the Shaws Bridge site. I entered in C1 and C2 with Niall Cockbill from WWKC.

The course set up had a few tricky gates set-up, with one of the most annoying ones, gate 5, at the first weir not quite in the eddy or the flow, and very close to the weir itself.

In my first run in the c1 I attacked this gate a bit too hard and caught an edge causing me to capsize. As I rolled back up my strap popped, which meant I wasn't able to commit to any of the turns on the rest of the course as I wanted to. I got back up and through the gate and finished the run in a respectable enough time clipping only 1 gate at the end.

Next up was my first c2 run with Niall. For once I was able to paddle on my strong side at the front, and we put in a decent time hitting 3 gates. We probably lost time due to my natural tendency to do cross bow strokes.

After the break it was time for second runs. Since I already had a decent time time in c1 (beating some actual slalom paddlers) I went all out to do the fastest run I could manage. I was dipping under the gates and hitting them all very high, and everything was going well until I was surfing back across the third weir. My srap popped again, causing me to capsize, and since I was in the stopper I was pulled straight out of the boat. Not to worry, there was a local news crew there to record the whole thing. Good to know my swims are news worthy.

When it came to the second run in the c2, I was concentrating on not doing cross bow strokes, and it worked really well. Myself and Niall really worked well together and we got a very good line through all the gates hitting just one. We were dipping the boat comfortably which was unexpected due to the heavier paddler being in the front.

We finished 4th out of 7 crews, which I was very happy with especially considering I was the only non slalom paddler in c2.

I still managed 7th (out of 9) in C1 despite only 1 run which had a roll in it. Next time I will outfit the boat myself and try and get even closer to the full time slalom paddlers.

Thanks to Navarat Turner for the photos.