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.