Bullet Wounds.
This weekend with most of the Thames valley paddlers heading off to the Hurley classic, we decided to be a bit controversial and head off down to the West Country to paddle the Dart with local legend Steve Whetman AKA Ugg! Fat Cat’s Ali Marshall and Bill also joined us. Saturday morning dawned wet and windy; the drive across Dart more may quite possibly be the worse whether I’ve ever driven in! But as a result when we arrived at New Bridge we found the river, as Steve described it “at a Good sporting level”. Just lapping the steps for every one else. After loading Ali and Bill’s boats on the car’s we sped back over the more to waters meet and quickly jumped on. The water really was flowing quite high and definitely the highest Ali, Bill and I had ever paddled it at! Needless to say we stuck close to Steve & Mike how were both paddling there composite Bullets and quickly learned the high water lines. Usually the amount of people walking off the river + random Kit would have concerned me, but Steve reckoned it was pretty common and not to worry.
(Mike and Steve at the end)
Thinking about I didn’t see another paddler on the water all day, just lots of boats and paddles in trees! Paddling was great though, the mad mile was ace. Super big drop’s were followed by big waves followed by even bigger holes, eddies seamed to be at a bit of a premium ho hum! Euthanasia & Pandora’s Box are the two main events on the river and neither disappointed, both turned into big pushy rapids with large holes to punch and move’s to make. Fantastic sport! After the first run Ali and Bill seamed happy with that and left me, Mike and Steve to do one last run. With the water level now starting to drop the rapids didn’t seam to get any smaller but the holes definitely increased in power, one image that has stayed in my mind is one of Steve getting a huge back loop at the start of the Mad Mile as he hit a big surging wave, Brilliant. Another first for me was to finally see Steve have to roll! And not only roll he took two attempts to get up! With 1 carp….. To be fair though he had just punched through a hole bigger than a house! But a roll is a roll. After two great runs down and a quick play session on the top wave of the loop section we headed home for medals and broken biscuits.
(It's just a flesh wound)
Steve’s bullet has received it first wounds. A trip to doctor Gee’s the cure! Stay tuned on how she recovers.
Cheers boys a great day on the river, lets go again!
posted by Pete @ 4:38 AM
1 Comments:
Hey guys that was a great day. There is loads more water on its way thurs,fri,sat so we will have some super sporty rivers. A chance to really test Pete's Pyranha Everest.Ugg :-)
Post a Comment
<< Home