Himalayan Whitewater Challenge 2015

The festival this year was a great success again seeing paddlers from all over the globe attending the event. Even with the India border blockade, the Nepalese paddlers and spectators fueled the party vibe and made it a memorable one.

 
Largely thanks to Paddle Nepal, the festival held three events. Extreme Slalom, Freestyle and BoaterX. I was able to compete in all, beating my positions gained at the 2014 events. I hope for the 2016 event the freestyle feature comes in stronger so the Nepali paddlers can really show their skill that they often practice whilst safety kayaking!

#BackOffIndia Nepal Winter 2015

I've been here for a month now and already I can say this year is totally different to my last season here.

The unofficial Indian trade blockade is crippling Nepal's ability to gain valuable resources such as vehicle fuel, cooking gas and certain foods. This is effecting the whole of Nepal from the cities to the mountain communities. The blockade has caused the UK government and other countries travel advisors to put an warning on visiting the country. From my base in Pokhara this is really evident as there is barely any tourists wandering the streets and more importantly not so many tourists coming rafting!

The lack of tourists has only become apparent to me in the last week as up until this point I have been working non stop on trips mostly consisting of UK and international kayakers. Last year I mostly was photographing rafting groups. Photoboating for kayakers, you need to be a lot quicker in all aspects and the faster tempo this year has been a challenge that I have had to adapt to. This year has been about making sure I'm shooting the most favorable rapids and paddling the fast lines. Hopefully the race style photoboating I've been doing will make me stronger for next weeks Himalayan Whitewater Challenge.

North Devon a Swell end to Summer

Having got back from my Italy Norway adventure mid UK summer season I managed to get myself a end of season job at a Skern Lodge in North Devon. I was employed as a paddlesports and land based activities instructor. Due to the supreme placement of the centre after work I was able to whiz down to the local beach Sandymere, Westward Ho! every other evening to go surf kayaking, swell dependent.

 Before this employment I had played a lot in the surf however this has always been in creekboats or playboats. Luckily Skern Lodge is also a Mega Kayaks demo centre which allowed me to borrow a full carbon Mega Bullit S. Having never used a surf specific boat before the first few waves were very exciting. The speed and distinct difference between front and back rails lead me to throwing some spins I had no intention of pulling off. After some top tips from superior colleges and a better understanding of wave selection I was loving it and hooked. My style is still very much whitewater, stay in your box based, but it was great to keep my paddling fitness fresh. Now i've just got to get used to paddling a whitewater boat again as I'm heading back to work in Nepal until January.

HIGH

Having moved from Japan to Nepal to see out the end of the season, although the water level is dropping, high, could be used to describe many aspects of my current paddling life. Here are a few snaps I've managed to get whilst photo boating for Paddle Nepal, Pokhara.

MEDIUM

I admit the blog has been neglected for the past two months. In Japan water levels finally came up for about 4weeks of high/medium flows. I didnt get any photos as I was often assisting in rafts or had to concentrate on the whitewater rather then photos. Here is a few snaps from my time in this strange and wonderful land.

I love my job

If only we were infact team Pyranha

Boat Pin, Mukawa River

Boat Rescue, Mukawa River, M/H flows.

Pat peaking for the line on Red Bridge Rapid, Mukawa River

Raji ready for high water rafting on the Saru River

Kishor, Ganesh, Ben

HOA Extreme Whitewater Challenge

The weekend of the 6th June saw a collection of thrity-one spirited local and international boaters congregate at Hokkaido Outdoor Adventure's base for the annual HOA Extreme Whitewater Challenge. There were four paddling events that took place on the Saru River and a non stop party atmosphere to keep competitors and spectators glowing.

photo credit: Lance PZ

Whitewater Slalom and Down River Race took place on the Saturday.  The Slalom was based on the rapid named First Drop with the main gates hung at the base of the river right shoot making a tricky short ferry glide across the main flow the course was fun for all but the creekboaters dominated. Personally I was given one chance on the course setting a time of 2:31 putting me in 13th place.

The next event, the Down River race, had a mass start of 29 paddlers go all out for roughly 1km this section went through a number of rapids including the Slalom section which lead to some great carnage that smashed my chances of being in the top 10 finishers, again I fought into 13th place at the last rapid. 

Following a night of heavy partying from all, peoples hangovers were washed away by the excitement that was created by the mornings Raft Race. This event allowed anyone to get on the water by borrowing kit from HOA.

 After a cracking lunch of Wazza Burgers the Freestyle Comp took place again on the Saru in the town of Hidaka where Ex-Freestyle champion Eric Southwick built a hole specially for the competition allowing easy access and viewing for all. Being in a creekboat my position for this event was pretty poor and I only scored 10points for a spin... Overall this put my overall standing for the comp at 13th. Thanks to all the new friends I made at the event maybe see you in the future.

Current Location: Hidaka, Hokkaido, Japan

Ohiyo Gozimas! Ive been in Japan a month so the initial shocks of Japanese life have worn off. I am learning to guide whitewater rafts surprisingly quickly and am loving safety kayaking and coaching in my adopted retro Pyranha Micro Bat 230 kayak.

Mukawa, Photo by Hokkaido Rafting

The rivers in the area I am paddling, regularly include the Saru River (Monkey River, there are no monkeys) and the Mukawa. Both are currently at a low water level leading to some super strong eddy lines. The rivers at their lower level are generally grade three runs then with an increase in water there are a number of rapids where the consequence of dodgy lines vastly increases.

Currently my favorite rapid on the River Saru is called First Drop. There are two lines, right, a boof over a retentive hole. Or left, punch through a hole to then boof another retentive hole with your next stroke. If you miss your boof on the left line prepare for a solid beatdown and have your mates get a rope ready, your going to need it. At present I've nailed this move each day, spurred on by being chased by rafts full of screaming Japanese.

All this water time is great for training for my first proper attempt at a whitewater competition. The HOA Extreme Whitewater Challenge, organised by my employer, it sounds like I stand a reasonable chance at winning some shinny kit. It would be great to meet any boating Brits that are in the area, get here for the party!

The Suns Origin

First of all I quickly put together a post together that has been posted on RohanTime.com This is Rohan's social page for customers, events and news. I have worked for Rohan for the past 8 months and has helped me to continue to live in the Lake District and now move onto my next adventure...

JAPAN, so if blog posts totally drop off over the next six months its because I am working hard as a trainee Raft Guide for a company called Hokkaido Outdoor Adventure. Wish me luck.

SUP

The past two weeks I have been getting out surf kayaking with on the sea at Bournemouth beach. I've been going with my friends Peza and Cheryl who have both been showing me up on Stand Up Paddle-boards (SUPs). We've been out a number of times over and the waves have gadually became better and more surfable until the last Saturday when the waves grew to a whopping continuous 4ft high the with the odd wave rolling in around 5-6ft. For my ability, at times, this was terrifying. To surf the waves firstly you needed to get "out back".  The outback in surfing is the area where you wait for the waves to come in, spot them, then ride them. To get out back I needed to time my paddling correctly so to not get caught up in the large aftermath of breaking waves and also not be at the same point where the waves were breaking. Unlike a surfer, in my kayak, I cannot dip underneath the breaking waves, i have to punch through them, a downfall to surf kayaking. However I managed to predict my paddling fairly well and get outback always relieved.

From here I was able to get in position to surf the waves coming in as best I could. after surfing the green wave then also surfing the strong broken wave. I would often end up all the way back on the beach and have to repeat the process of getting out back, a tiring action.

I unfortunately had one swim on this day after getting caught out by a huge steep wave as I was getting out back. I ended up trying to go over the it at the time it was steepest. Unfortunately due to the steepness of the wave and gravity instead of punching through the top of the wave. I felt my boat sliding back down the wave face and start to plain. So i started surfing the wave backwards. Something I can just about do on a small wave. This six footer was no match for me. I was unable to spin back around to face down the wave and ended up going over. I tucked up and felt as the wave broke and carried me all the way to the beach still upside down. I tried performing my C to C roll but in the foamy wash I couldn't managing. I chose to come out of my boat. I then had to get myself boat and paddle to shore only 15m away the dumping waves made it a struggle. I emptied my boat of water and carried on as I had been doing before.

At the beginning of our session the tide was in and I was keen to get on the water. However I didn't put on my new GoPro mount as I didn't want to have it trashed straight away which it would have done. As the tide dropped towards the end of my session the waves became unsurfable for me, so I got my DSLR out and snapped some photos of Peza on the diminishing leftovers from stood in the shallows.

We use the site MagicSeaweed to predict what the surf conditions are going to be like.

After these exciting times in the next few days I then had an equally exciting time doing my first piece of commercial/non commercial work for an old friend Sam of Cumulus Outdoors. I was creating a promotional video for them to promote their coasteering programs based along the Souths Jurassic Coastline. The experience was extremely beneficial. Learning what skills I need to further develop and how to approach future work projects.

Yeeeeehhhhaaarrrrr

I've spent the last few days securing my visa for working in the USA. I should now be able to work out there over the summer now. Super excited.

My friend also finished editing his film this week that I helped film. A film about how Miles Hickey is dealing with being diagnosed with cancer and his adventures in the outdoors. The film is on Youtube at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwd9xJ60AXU&feature=youtu.be&a