My first attempts at bloggaging, stories, reviews and thoughts of what I do.

So we'll go with an easy one..just to get me started.

That's not Canoeing! That's floating with style

It was early January, I had put my name down for a paddle with my local canoe club, we were to paddle the upper Wye. It was the section from Llanidloes to Rhayader and graded at a grd three river, it was a section I had not paddled before and now having done it, I just have to say it is a lovely bit of river, one which I would jump at the chance to do again.

 

It was a reasonably large group of about eleven kayaks and five canoes, so with this in mind it would be time consuming and therefore impracticable for everyone to get out and inspect each and every single rapid.

To make matters just a little more interesting it was quite a cold day, with the temperature dropping to minus three on the drive up.

I was  doing rather well on the mostly read and run rapids, alternating between grinning like a Cheshire cat and gritting my teeth and digging in when confronted by the strong headwind.

On the bigger (grd three) rapids a small contingent of the more advanced and hopefully wiser paddlers inspected them and then "called the shots"

We were at one such rapid, we had all pulled into an eddy above the "event."

This rapid starts off with a dog leg bend followed by a chute then finally a big wall to not to "splatt against".

After an inspection by the river gurus, we were good to go.

 Safety cover was set up, and some kayakers who have run the rapid before set off down without any issues.

 "Follow their line" was the instruction.

I had watched the kayakers go and I had noticed that each and every one was catching a submerged boulder causing them to wobble some what.

So, I thought to myself, I'll be the first canoe down and I'll miss that boulder and run the rapid like a good 'un.

That was not the best decision I have ever made, what happened next was a bit of a blur so I'll explain as best I can, maybe using just a little artistic licence.

I approached the rapid slowly aiming to go round the boulder on river right, that was the beginning of my escapade. The front of my boat had swiped the submerged boulder pushing the bow into an eddy the river actions spinning me round, so I was now facing backwards and travelling in another flow, this new path I had inadvertently taken was a ledge with a little channel and good flow on it.

So now I was  looking down on the chute which was my intended route.

I just managed to paddle / push myself forward enough to grab a handy branch so I could survey my predicament. This ledge I was caught upon terminates in a drop at the end and sides, with boulders poking through the "horizon line" just like big black broken teeth waiting to chomp me up.

A thumbs up from the spectators/safety cover meant I didn't need rescuing, but I was on my own to deal with it as best as I can.

 "gulp!"

I saw a gap in the "teeth" and decided to go for it, not knowing what was below  and what was going to happen, I prepared myself for a cold swim, dry suit or not that water was DAMN cold!

I let go of "Stick" who was my new found friend, leant forward and aimed for the gap, I gripped the boat with my legs, held the paddle in a defensive position ready for a brace of any kind.

Adrenalin took hold as my boat teetered over the edge, the back end dropped into the froth followed quickly by the front, which then bounced off the rock face I had just gone down, which then in turn knocked me into the flow spinning me round, I was working the paddle like madman trying to turn the boat 180' before I reached the small gorge, this gap I was heading for was just a little narrower than my boat is long.

The stern caught the one side of the gorge and the bow the other, so I wasn't out of the woods yet!

The boat tipped I braced "this is it" I thought as I braced again and again, fortunately the bracing action was enough to "shimmy" the boat so the front was deeper in the flow than the back, this caused the boat to turn and then I was free, paddling into a river left eddy to a round of applause. I had forgotten about the spectators

My heart now was beating like a big bass drum and my hands were shaking like a couple of wobbly shaky things.

I regained enough of my composure to set myself up down stream with a throw line just in case there was another event, to be honest another reason to place myself away from the main group so that they couldn't see my shaky hands nor my pale face.

There was another group on the river at that time that we were "leap frogging" and one of them posted pictures on a canoe based Facebook page. One of the comments......

"Hey Tim, we were watching as you did that. It looked like it was going to end very badly, but in fairness I think you managed the reverse drop with style."

That was the comment reminded me of a Toy Story quote "That's not flying, that's falling with style" and gave rise to the title of this article.

Next time I will follow the line pointed out to the letter!

See you in the next eddy.

Tim