North Wales 21 / 22 May 2005 (Swimmer(s?))

The weekend started with a few drinks in the guild to help Emma celebrate the end of her finals. During the evening we all consumed ‘sensible’ amounts of alcohol, and then took it upon ourselves to persuade the freshers that they all wanted to come along on Sunday’s trip to the Dee, regardless of what exams they might have remaining. This was followed by a trip to Manzils, where both Edsco and I promptly fell asleep on the table (or naan in Edsco’s case). We ate, and somehow made it back to Emma’s flat, where we were staying.
Saturday started nice and early, with Edsco’s alarm waking all but Edsco at 7am! No one really seemed to move then until about 10am, when we decided we should head off towards the Tryweryn. After stopping off for some ‘graduate’ style food, we made it to Nomad Paddleworks in Bala, where Martyn was hoping to demo a boat. After a bit of searching, the staff realised that the reason they could not find the boat to lend to Martyn, was because someone else had already taken it out, so we headed off. (Little did I know that I would be back within the hour!) Upon arrival at the Tryweryn, much mincing ensued before deciding that we really ought to get on the water, no matter how hung-over we all were. As we were getting changed, I delved into my bag to pick out my buoyancy aid, then realised that I had left it in London. I really should not go packing for things whilst drunk!! So, off to the rafting centre I headed hoping that they would be nice enough to loan me a BA for the day, but no. The cited something about them being responsible if the BA failed and something happened to me. So, does this mean that they are happy to lend these BA’s to rafters with a chance they might fail? Anyway, back off to Paddleworks in Bala, to purchase me a cheapo BA.
Finally, we got on the water, and had a go at eddy hopping, and generally messing about. The first run down was pretty much without incident, apart from Martyn getting another boater stuck in the ski jump (Martyn was surfing it, and the other guy came down, tried to avoid Martyn and got stuck). We all had a go at surfing most of the waves on the course, before heading back off to the top again. Between starting to get out of his boat, and making it to the top of the bank, Martyn somehow managed to wash all the paddling kit he was wearing, but denies he swam. I will leave it to him to provide his excuses.
For the second run, Edsco decided he was too old to fit back into his boat, and sat this run out. The remainder (Chris, Martyn and myself all attempted 360 flat sip seal launches down the raft launch ramp, but decided it was impossible to manage a complete 360, as no matter how hard we tried, we could only manage 270’s. Chris then demonstrated a new splat move, which we called the splat into broach pin move, much to the amusement of everyone on the bank. After un-pinning himself, we continued down, uneventfully, until the wave at an angle under the bridge. Martyn went first, making it into an eddy successfully on river right just after the wave. He was followed by Chris, who for some reason thought that it was to easy to stay up right, so went for a roll practice part way through the wave, only for him to not manage to roll back up. Next we saw his head bob up next to his up turned boat. Chris was swimming! Martyn took charge of getting Chris to the side, and I took care of his boat. Chris gave some excuse about not having paddled in a while, and thought that he needed to practise his self-rescue technique! We all hopped back in and we all paddled off to the centre wave, where we decided that we had had enough, and finished for the day. We headed of to Bala to find our luxurious accommodation at Bala Backpackers, before heading of to find food / beer.

Sunday we rose, breakfasted, and headed off to Eddy Lines to waste some time before meeting up with a group joining us for the day from uni. They arrived, and we headed up to the get in for the Dee. The level was low, but runnable, so we decided to get on at Horse-shoe weir, as none of us could see sense in paddling miles of flat water above. We paddled up the canal from chain bridge hotel to the weir, before paddling back down past the hotel on the river. Serpent’s tail quickly arrived upon us, but we not worth worrying about as the water level was so low. While getting out of his boat at the bottom in order to run it again, Martyn managed to wash all his kit again. Any excuses Martyn? The next point of interest was Mile End Mill, which we made use of for stopper surfing practice (on the second wave) and some attempts at playboating on the bottom wave. Just as we were preparing to head down to Llangollen, a couple of the other boaters in the eddy mentioned to us that we weren’t allowed to paddle down to the town, as this was not a designated ‘open’ weekend, and by paddling down we would be ruining everything for all the other boaters. To this we said ‘Ok’, before breaking in, and paddling downstream!
Next up was town falls, which we all inspected, um-ed and ah-ed about which line would be best to take, before all but the freshers ran it. This ended a good weekends paddling, which was topped off with the traditional visit to Llangollen Kebab House.

Unfortunately, the only swim of the trip was had be Mr Chriskew, plus a couple of technicals from Martyn.

Pictures will be posted soon.

Hurley - 21/22 May 2005 (Swimmer)

As you probably know Hurley went up to a low two gates on Saturday morning (as predicted!). None of the front pages updated from one gate but given the rain we chanced it and were duly rewarded. Level was a very low two gates but possibly the best two gates level we've ever seen. Both gates were super-retentive, probably as retentive as it is on three. Rick and I basically had it to ourselves for about three hours on Saturday afternoon/evening. Was very sweet indeed. A slight aside, as I went to leave I put my boat against the barrier above the little concrete step to the river left of gate one (i.e. the closed gate). I then turned round to talk to Rick for about twenty seconds, looked back, where the £*$% is my boat, agghh! Bearing in mind that it was dark by this time and my boat had presumably got sucked round and through the open gates and washed down the river. Obviously I don't have airbags in my boat. Cue much panicking that my boat's never going be seen again. Rick has a look and can't find it. I tell him to look again and eventually he finds it bobbing around in the eddy on river left. I was very relived. That would have been a really really stupid was to loose your boat.

Anyway, moving on to Sunday. We went down again and met up with Rich Smith and Matt Pyne. Level was still really good and we had paddled for absolutely ages, something like five hours. My body currently hurts, a lot. We messed around on the wave, attempted some loops (and got trashed), Rick starting to look good on the blunts. Anyway, after about five hours both Matt and I were totally screwed and were getting off. Rick wanted 'one more go', fair enough. So we're getting back into our boats and we look round to see Rick in mid flow trying to hand roll. He half hand rolls (wasn't really close to coming up) once, twice, three times, and a bail! Matt and I wet ourselves to see Rick's head pop up away from the boat. Hurrah, Ricky takes a swim, Matt and I could barely contain our glee. We duly rescued his boat and paddles (which he'd failed to keep hold of) and put him back in his boat, asked if he was okay, not too cold and other patronising questions. First swim in nine years I believe. I'll invite Ricky to offer his explanations/excuses for this shocking behaviour but it was something to do with letting go of his paddles (doh!). Anyway, just thought you'd like to know this little nugget. To those going to Alps I daren't think what kind of absolution a sin such as this would require, I suggest a run down the Salmon course, a funnel at the end, a run back up to the top, another run down it and then another funnel at bottom. The guilty must be punished

Chertsey - 14 May 2005

Well, what with there being no water in Hurley nor anywhere else I went to Chertsey on Saturday afternoon. Overall verdict is that it's a bit lame. Basically it's a small put powerful pourover in the middle of a big weir, if you put any part of the boat into it it'll flip you right over straight away. You can do this forwards and backwards and you can also shoot the whole thing but beyond that there's not really much to do. The water looked quite murky as well. Personally I can't recommend it. However, if it came to August and there's been no boating for ages then going down there with a few people on a sunny afternoon could be quite amusing, you could think up a variety of things to do I suppose.

Intended to go to Hambeldon on Sunday morning only to discover that the one gate had been closed, boo, good job I found out before making the journey mind.

Dave.

Hurley - 12 May 2005

Took my French friend down Hurley. It was one gate and you could argue a good case that on one gate it's total bollocks. The 'wave' was small, low angle and quite flushy, you've got to work to stay on. That said, its quite fun to sit on the eddy-line, lean upstream and just as its about to tip you over do a big reverse stroke, that produced some interesting results, managed to hold the boat vertical for about five seconds before going over. Don't think it's worth the drive just for that though. French friend did well, only two swims and was paddling forwards under control after about twenty minutes. Told him to go in the wave with the inevitable results, water was quite warm though so swimming wasn't too bad. Also realised that my X-Rescue technique is totally crap (something to do with not being strong enough I reckon).
Dave.

The Mighty Don - 11 May 2005 (Swimmer)

First a brief description of Abingdon or the Mighty Don as it’s become known. Like the Mighty Nene, the Mighty Don, certainly ain’t hardcore. The weir's made up of a few nasty walled in gate/sluice bits and then the playboating venue. This consists of 12 gates, which are similar to the side radials at Hurley.

On our visit 6 of the 12 gates were open, an ideal level apparently. Gates are open, one open, one closed across the weir.

There weren’t too many people on the water and it was soon my go. I went in the second open gate on river right, as the locals had done. First thing that struck me was that it was actually rather more sticky than it looked, and it was also rather shallow. I had a play. Now Abingdon is supposed to be a one move wonder, that move being the front surf. Frankly that’s bollocks if you ask me. I couldn’t seem to stay in a front surf, and it was more like surfing a stopper side on.

Now I’m not sure what had attracted Dave to the gate nearest the eddy, the locals had all avoided it, but Dave was upside down in it. The reason everyone had avoided it was that it was right next to a wall. Dave was upside down, and it looked like he was being bashed against the wall. Anyway soon enough there was that all too familiar sight, as Daves helmet appeared from underneath the boat, and to my embarrassment Dave went for a swim. We got him out, it was so shallow he pretty much walked out!

Later in the evening someone else went for a swim and I was relieved. But no, not to be outdone Dave promptly followed with another swim! Apparently he’d got his paddle stuck on the bottom!
So what can you do at Abingdon? Well you can surf the wave sideways, front ways a bit and do a few spins. It’s quiet steep, very stopper like, and fairly sticky. You can also pull off the spin dryer move. Where by you get stuck in the middle of the weir sideways and then go upside down and round and round and round… Great fun, and I got a round of applause for my efforts.

Abingdon is not worth travelling from much outside Abingdon for! But if you’re local and the valley is dry, Abingdon is a good bit of fun.

Martyn

HPP and Hambledon 7/8 May

You missed out on some nice beatings this weekend...

Dave B, Martyn and myself took it upon ourselves to venture out of the valley for some paddling this weekend, and started off at HPP on Saturday. We had heard that they hade made some changes to one of the holes on the course, making it more interesting. Of course, we had to test this out, and we can all confirm that the hole half way down the course (just under a bridge) does now dish out some nice beatings for those fool-hardy enough to venture into it. It was normally ok for a few seconds, letting you think that you were in control, before it took over and decided to try and make a mockery out of you to the watching crowd. Due to the level of the water, the stopper at the bottom of the course (the Muncher?) looked like it would be nice and sticky, but should let you escape if you managed to get to the river right edge of it, so there was only one thing we could do, and that was to spoof to see who had to drop into it sideways to test our theory. Martyn was fortunate enough to lose, and so off he went. Dave and myself were stood on the bank, with throwlines at the ready, waiting for the expected swim, but Martyn was loving side surfing the stopper, even shouting to us that it 'seemed fine'. After a bit, he decided to try and get out of the stopper, y making his way to the right. This was when he decided that it was actually grippier than he thought. He did manage to escape though. Next, Dave nor myself could afford to be outdone, so we all took it in turns to get stuck in. Dave screwed up on the entry, and tested whether it would flush straight through if he took it upside down, which it did. We took a few attempts each, and I even tested out how long it would hold someone upside down for. The answer was I gave up after about 10 seconds of not going anywhere.

On Sunday, we decided to venture to Hambledon, to see what all the fuss was about. When we arrived, we walked up to inspect it, and all noticed that the majority of the people there seemed to be in boats much bigger than ours. Some were even in creekers!! This got us thinking that maybe we had mis-read something, but we decided to get on anyway. Despite there being many people in the eddy, by the time you had dropped of the wave, and got back into the eddy, it was your time to go again. No-one was managing more than a few seconds of surfing / trashing. On my first attempt, the force of the water popped my deck, leaving me with a swamped boat, so I paddled to the side, and emptied it. Slowly, the number of people who were there dropped, until it was just the 3 of us. Just after 1, some one came accross to let the ramps down, but before they did so, they cranked them right up for us which led to both Martyn and myself getting some lovely beatings, before the ramps were dropped. The hole then seemed to calm down, and became much less retentive, with all my attempts just flushing straight off. We then decided to call it a day, and head towards the pub.

I have some photos from Hambledon, which I will upload when I get the opportunity.

Hurley - April 30 2005 (Swimmer)

They'd fixed the gate so it was on two back in the corner. Met Martyn in the car park and was very surprised to get to the wave to find no one else there, this despite it a sunny Saturday afternoon? Was quite a high two and a bit flushly, managed to do a few things but couldn't really seem to get much going, washed out to easily. Highlight of the afternoon was
warning Martyn we didn't want to see any more of this letting go of the paddles nonsense. Low and behold Martyn got flipped, made a dodgy attempt at a roll, let go of his paddles, almost hand rolled up and then bailed out. I was sitting in the eddy somewhat bemused at his antics but decided I'd better go help him get out. Always a pleasure to help Martyn get out the water after a swim!

Hurley - 29 April 2005

Taking a record two and a half hours to get there I went for a solo mission to Hambeldon. It was on two gates and was impressively large, however only the river right side of the hole was at all retentive whilst river left washed through. Only spend about half an hour before moving over to Hurley. Hurley was down to two but the gate nearest the wall was jammed so it was running through the two middle gates. The result was a very low angle and it formed neither a hole nor a wave, instead a strange in-between. Wasn't really very retentive but was still quite a laugh. Paddled for a record three and a half hours between the two, sweet.