Change It Up #2

This fortnight I took my boats to the River Kent and Northshore "surf beach" again. With George and Bob keen to get out on the rivers we ventured to the Kent but with no other vehicles to shuttle with we sessioned the section from the rapid above Sedgewick Bridge to the get out after Force Falls. I set my gopro to photo every second mode and hoped to capture the moments when boofing off of L-Shape and powering over Force Falls as we had caught the river at a good level, around 1.23m on the EA gauge. I was rewarded with the shot below. It was captured on my third drop of the falls that day which was also my best line of the day as on my previous attempts I got a kicking at the bottom of the falls.

Force Falls, River Kent

Later that week the swell came up at Northshore, Whitehaven, so I accompanied Tom and Mike with their surfboards. When getting to the beach the wind had dropped off leaving the surf to become cleaner and more linear an awesome sight for what is usually a pretty messy surf location. The surf wasn't particularly big but it was great for testing my ability to Flatspin my boat quickly and keep on the waves as the ride the waves produced wasn't very powerful and ended up being a pretty short ride. I snapped this photo again with my GoPro when Tom and Mike were taking a break on the harbour wall. I was quite happy bobing about.

Freestyle Stoke

For the past month its been raining pretty regularly in the Lake District making river levels fluctuate heavily and sit solidly on the medium - high level this is especially so for the river Leven. This has lead to our favourite play spot, Brick Chutes, to be in perfect condition for using for surfing progression. Pete K, Thomas H, Mike D and I have been making regular trips to the location to get our fix of whitewater in between our jobs.

Over the past few weeks my muscle memory for my roll has really shon through allowing me to recover quickly from when going over. Having this confidence has really allowed me to throw my boat around and use it more how it should be used. So much so that at I am now quite capable of pulling off flatspins in both directions which grants such a good feeling and would actually score points in a freestyle competition! I've been able to pull off this trick not only at Brick Chutes but also out in the sea at Silecroft, getting multiple spins down on single rides, much to my surprise.

Hopefully next week I'll be doing this...