Aire Waves: August 2005

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Aire Waves

Leeds Canoe Club Blog. We paddle... lots!
Airewaves used to be Leeds Canoe Club's magazine letting people know what the club was upto. Its quite hard work pulling together a publication letting people know what the club is doing and publishing dates in advance is always hard as things tend to change. Step forth the blog.. Push button publishing for the masses. So here is the idea a few people in the club take it in turns to write up trips and talk about things in the club.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005
The wild roller

Sunday the 28th August,

I think that I've become the kayaking worlds greatest excuse maker, I can provide a reason why I shouldn't do something before even considering how great it could be. Take the last weekends paddling, Washburn was on. The water too fast, the waters too cold, Watch out for that tree, eddy where?, too many rocks, too long, what about the big drop, the teas a bit iffy (sometimes).
This is becoming a hindrance to my potential as a paddler."Bite the bullet do something good this weekend, prove your self, raaaaar". Washburn here I come. Do I fancy doing Teeside?, yes I don't like Washburn at the moment, too many trees and the waters a bit too fast. Teeside it was then.
I need a plan other than the usual go, paddle, make excuses, leave early, faking back ache. A quick check of the website, the water levels very high. Great that means no bottom drop. Rolling practice?. A good plan, a good opportunity, go for it, raaar.
Previous failed rolling excuses include the followingI wasn't ready, I didn't expect it to be that cold, It was automatic I went over and my hand just pulled the deck off, a small vole got in the way, brain freeze.
We are on the water at Teeside. The first part of my plan was to roll in the lake at the top, this was cunningly avoided by not letting on about my rolling plans, no excuses used up so far. So into stage two.
I've dropped down the first wave and eddied out on the left. Into a small pool of stationary water about two feet deep.

Excuse No 1: The water too shallow to roll.

This is a classic I've used it many times, I had planned on using this one for a few more years yet, but the time has come, my intensions had been announced to the world, I am here to practice rolling and my kayaking buddy now knows it. So with the eyes of the world upon me, time to do the deed. By the third successful roll, I came up with the brain freeze excuse. A classic, I can't roll anymore my brain hurts I think I must be limited to three, I need to take a break. It worked. The slave driver backed off.
We moved down the course to find the next stage of my self inflicted ordeal. This was to take place at the bottom of the course, which was mostly washed out by high tide, so perfect then for my rolling master class.
Excuse No3. It looks a bit fast.
"GET IN" this outburst was delivered with an outstretched arm and a pointy finger. Its a bit fast. "NO ITS NOT, GET IN". More finger waving. Off I go. Temporary excuses are good but they don't last long, they only put off the inevitable, I used the "oops forgot to put on my nose clip". Quick thinking I think you'll agree, but ultimately useless, I had to go back around and have another go. First attempt worked ok, second go failed and panic kicked in as did AUTOPILOT, up I came. Amazing it worked, and when I needed it too. When the heart gets a pumping and the adrenalin starts to flow the excuses arrive. "Brain freeze, bob, I can only manage three rolls before I need to get my head warmed up" "you've only done two". Bugger. Did I mention that my tutor for the day was Bob. Thanks Bob. Third roll succeeded. Old hat now.

Excuse No 5. End on a high (Thanks to Andy Hall for this one, given to me whilst attempting to pool roll)
I played the kayaking equivalent of a winning hand, the master stroke. I'd managed to limit the rolling in white water experience to six rolls and gotten away with it. WooHoo. We Paddled back, a distance of about thirty yards, in this time I managed to recall my rolling adventure story at least twice.
The rest of the day was taken up by the usual messing about in the water. A point to note, if your of a slightly larger build, and your going to attempt to to put in above the big wave, hold on to the railings. I attempted this maneuver for the first time on Sunday, left arm holding the railing, right arm struggling to regain control of my boat which was a lot more eager than I was to go down the drop. Imagine stretch arm strong (if your old enough). Luckily Bob was facing the other way and my pathetic launch went unseen.
The rest of the day was a bit boring, after the success of my half a roll in the wild (I'm still counting it, even though I went in ready to roll, and rolled!), we ran the course a bit, we eddied out, we ferry glided and I got flipped over and rolled, it was shallow, it was fast, it was cold, it was every thing I always feared, but I felt none of it, I rolled, I flippin well rolled. RAAAAR. Just the once. WOOHOOO. No excuses just rolled, I'm just going to say it once more. I ROLLED IN THE WILD.
A final run through the course and Bob treated me to display of play boating. An awesome spinning extravaganza, cartwheels were fantastic. Bobs specialty HALF CARTWHEEL THEN LAND UPSIDE DOWN, ROLL, AND STATE THAT WASN'T IT I'LL DO IT AGAIN. I need once again to thank the more experienced paddler for showing the lesser skilled kayaker some useful hints and tips.

The following list can only be used by the more experienced paddler (or at least one who can roll occasional)

1) There's no one to teach me, so it takes me longer to learn
2) The seats a bit wonky and I need to re-outfit my boat
3) The knee brace came loose.
4) I've been up since 4am
5) I am over 40 (please note that I'm not and won't be able to use this one for some time yet)
6) My toe nail hurts (Actually used at Teeside on Sunday, not brought about by being wedged in too tight, but by the careless use of nail clippers the night before)

Five excuses used up, but another six in the bank, kayaking really is the sport where you keep on learning. Oh and did I mention I rolled.

# posted by Martin @ Wednesday, August 31, 2005 0 comments

Friday, August 05, 2005
While everybody were in the Alps trip...

Alright, alright, we've missed the Alps trip, and the photos really make me jealous - but the life went on around Leeds as well!
We went to Teesside with Dave on the 24th hoping to see the Acid Drop at 0.4 tide - but unfortunately they closed the outer gates for safety reasons and all we've seen was just a couple of weak waves instead of huge drop. A bit of a disappointment for us especially after Martin's report from the previous day (Saturday the 23rd) that the Drop was there at its best. However, Dave has taught me how to flatspin my barge in the Happy Eater and despite a swim I had to go for having let my paddle a bit more independende than I should, it was a fantastic training session.
We went to the Ure by the Sleningfor Mill campsite on Friday the 29th with Bob. Not a breathtaking whitewater experience - despite the heavy rains on Thursday, there was no water by Friday night - but still a good hour of paddling.
Then, on Saturday the 30th, Chris and me went to Holme Pierrepont, which turned out to be a great day on the water! We were lucky enough to try it at both 20 and 27 cumecs (3/4 and full releases respectively) and surprizingly, the 3/4 turned out to be more interesting than the full one - at a full release the majority of Grade 2ish features got flushed away, whilst it made almost no difference to the bigger stuff. Among the other things it's worth mentioning that during my last descent I got stuck in the first hole (the one in a narrow concrete channel looking like the one in Teesside, but behaving a bit differently) for about ten minutes (even though the spectators said so - it felt to me like I'd spent there no more that just a couple of minutes) on the side surf, absolutely stable, but helpless as a kitten on a tree, having had to roll a dozen of times, trying everything I've read in the books to get out of there, but finding myself in the same position in the hole every time I've rolled. Two pleasant moments from this epic were that a)there was a huge queue above the drop waiting from me to clear the hole, and they all thought I was playing as they told me afterwards (well, there definitely was a game played, but I'd rather say that the Whitewater Mama was playing with me than vise versa), and b) a nice blonde girl came to the top of the wall to ask whether I was alright.
However, I still had enough courage to film Chris's last descents on the course - the movie to follow soon, and I hope I can get the music sorted. Apart from this, we've seen a 'demo playboating session', which was cool - a lot of aerial elements and all sorts of moves I can think of.
I must admit that the water wasn't even half as bad as it's normally thought of. Unlike the Aire, it didn't even smell, and the color was OK. Don't know about Chris, but I had no digestion problems afterwards - probably, four pints of Guinness kicked in, I dunno (and who says Cola is the best remedy?). Overall, it can be compared to Teesside by the water quality, probably, we've just been lucky.
So I must admit that HPP is a really good alternative to Teesside - more powerful, with a lot of playing features and just 80 miles away from Leeds.

But that wasn't it. We packed the gear and went to North Wales with an intension to camp overnight and go for Tryweryn the next day. It took us surprizingly long time to get there (3.5 hours) - and as a consequence, all pubs got closed by the time we got to a nice camping site at Caerwrswrsllwrsrrllw Station at 20 miles distance from Bala. But there was a Spar still open at quarter to eleven in Llangolen, so that's where the Guinnes came from, even though somebody preferred to drink milk.
In the morning we went to Bala, and after having a 50th burger over the weeked each, we've discovered that the bottom park was full of suspicious people obviously living in caravans at the car park, so we had to park a ferry car a bit further down the road.
The Tryweryn at nine cumecs was - quite expectedly - a really enjoyable descent. We've run it down to the Chapel Falls not even trying to catch any eddies except the ones below the major rapids to catch or breath - alright, we've missed some training opportunities, but at least we've enjoyed ourselves. Then we portaged up to the Cafe Wave and run the rest of the river from there down to Bala.
Two remarks about recent changes on Tryweryn - first, the seal launch from the shore below the Chipper is no longer possible unless you are ready to scrath your boat's hull againts the concrete slide - the soil slope is fenced off and slosed for seal launches due to erosion. Second - they removed the scaffolding from underneath the road bridge, so it's totally safe now.
Overall, we really enjoyed the river and got home by around seven o'clock.

So that was it. Really good weekend, pretty intense, with a lot of driving, but that was worth it.

# posted by Russian Paul @ Friday, August 05, 2005 3 comments

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