Freedom

The last month seems to have sped no doubt this was because off of the boating the team has been doing. To start off the North West saw a superb amount of swell come its way so we had a few sessions at Northshore and St.Bees. mostly were very windy but good waves to be had especially by Mike who was on his new long board which due to its size had no trouble catching any wave he wanted as if he had an engine.

Photo of Alex by Bob, Trib into the Rawthey.

 Next the rain came and saw us going a spate run of the Lune where actually most of the rapids were washed out however this lead to the formation of some pretty sweet wave chains and huge areas of boil which is always entertaining. On this day we also did for the first time as a team the middle section of the Rawthey. Now this run was pretty poor in our opinion. It needs a ton more water then guidebook suggests as it was very scrappy in places even though we were paddling it at a "high" level. Look out for a river wide tree that must be portaged about an hour into the river.

Bob running End of the World Rapid, Scottish Leven.

This poor experience was soon forgot about though as we nipped upto Glencoe for the 10th, 11th, 12th to see what Scotland had to offer. This was the first time for me paddling in Scotland and I can easily say it was some of the most challenging, scary, exciting, technical boating I have ever done. We had a great crew of people, Pete, George, Bob, Fiona, James, Sam and myself all were able to push ourselves on the rivers and we all saw our own bit of carnage. Luckily everyone came off easy and managed to only aquire a few solid bumps and bruises which we are all grateful for.

In the super stout SUNNY three days we got on the Orchy, Etive, Alt A'Chaorainn and Scottish Leven all of which I hope to repeat in the future. Anyone that is looking to get up paddling in Scotland I highly recommend getting in touch with a local boating crew as it saves on having to inspect every run and allows you to crack on at a good pace allowing for more rivers!!

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.