Uganda...again :)

So, whilst in Lyon I had to decide where to go next to find some waves. Canada, Uganda or staying in Europe were the choices. I chose the option that was logistically easy and certain to have waves: Uganda. I thought Canada would probably be busy and Uganda, although busy with British & irish uni paddlers, would probably be quiet in terms of international paddlers who tend to visit Uganda in Jan/Feb time. (They were ALL here last time I was here!)

Well, here I am and it certainly isn't busy - there have been just 3 of us staying on the Hairy Lemon! However, the waves aren't quite as ideal as when I was out here in January. 2 weeks ago the river got too high for club wave :( and has stayed that way since. Ordinarily this is quite good as it means Nile Special will then usually work for longer each day. However, due to my weather-witch influence, Nile Special is as low and flushy as when club wave is in and still only comes in late afternoon.

We have done a couple of boda missions up to Superhole, which whilst not very 'super' has a super-slow shoulder on it which is great for learning moves without being handed a 'bounce on a plate' that Nile Special gives you. A couple of hours at superhole followed by the day 2 section is pretty good for keeping boat-fit too.

We're up in Jinja now for a bit of river-running and to see what waves we can find on the 'day 1' section.

Lyon

I've just returned from a couple of weeks in Lyon.














The levels were low, but it was great to be in my boat and on a wave (which has not happened since March!). The wave has changed a lot since I was last there in 2006 (?or was it 07?), for the last Lyon River Festival and it took a good couple of days to really get the hang of catching it.


The main difficulty was positioning from upstream, as the pillars that used to stick out of the water at these levels have been knocked off (apparently by cars (!) and equally large heavy objects floating downstream!). So, it was a case of spotting the spray and aiming just a little bit left! There is just a boats-width sweet spot in which to catch the wave (on the pile just slightly river left of the main wave) and either side of that means floating off downstream ready to get out, clamber over the rocks (AGAIN!) and get back to the top (AGAIN!).

When we'd finally got the hang of catching the wave, although it was a little flushy at these levels, it was super bouncy and super fun!



Last year I decided that I would no longer paddle Dagger playboats as I could not get on with the Agent as well as I initially thought I would. Unfortunately this has meant I am still trying to decide which boat to paddle on a wave (in a hole it is definitely the Star), so....Star a










.....or Project?














I am heading back to Uganda on Tuesday for a few weeks, but my decision-making abilities (what little I had of them) have been all used up, so at the moment I don't have a clue which boat I'll take with me!

Thanks to Nicola Beeby and Cam for the photos.

Decisions decisions

Nearly 2 months without rain :( has meant no Hurley, no boating, which is a shame as this is the first year in several when March/April (and most probably May) has been dry, and this is the year I could really do with Hurley being open to practice for the Worlds in August.

So..... where shall I go to paddles some waves?

No rain :( but biking in the sunshine :)

How unusual, a bank holiday weekend in North Wales without rain - how did that happen? Because we took our boats. Yep, weather witch strikes again - metcheck had predicted loads of rain for N.Wales for Thursday, which then changed to Friday, neither of which materialised.

As we were dusting the cobwebs off the creek boats and loading them onto the car roof, and later when we were driving 2o mins back to Reading to pick up our forgotten paddles - I figured it would probably rain just enough to get us wet, cold and muddy whilst biking, but not enough for us to go boating. We were therefore pleasantly surprised to find blue skies and warm weather for the full 4 days of the bank holiday (though we weren't at all surprised that there wasn't enough rain to go boating!) which allowed for some great biking, with 16 of our Reading friends, across the Welsh countryside.
















Welsh lamb, cute, but...mmmmmm.....mint sauce





We met up with Bledd and Lynsey, who as always had far too much energy. They took us on one of their local rides - which thankfully involved hardly any uphill! My kind of ride :)






















Some Welsh ruins (behind me!) - almost as common as caravans on the A5 to Betws-y-coed on a bank-holiday weekend.










I was almost sacrificed to the gods when we arrived at Llandegla to a slight blip in the weather - it always snows when I go to Llandegla. Thankfully it was just really cold and cloudy with no snow (though the rest of Wales was still under blue skies and sunshin!), so I was spared the sacrifical offering.

Back up to N.Wales this w/e for team training at the Tryweryn and Youth Freestyle on the Dee, and then working for a whole week (thats quite unusual at the moment!) which will guarantee Hurley to be open!

GB Team Selections

This year was really hard to make the team, I think I said that last year, but this year I really felt under pressure as the selection event was being held on my local playspot: Hurley weir. The level was what is usually termed a 'perfect 3-gater'. However, whilst 'perfect' for an afternoon paddle in the sunshine with a couple of people in the eddy it was, unfortunately, not quite so 'perfect' for a competition as the 'perfect 3-gater' is actually fairly flushy - the green shoulders allow for huge moves (which makes for the 'perfect' bit of the name), but the shoulders were maybe just a bit too green for a competition - in fact both shoulders ran into each other, the wave was ALL shoulders and really lacked the usual retentive pile on the top. 

My worries at the beginning of the week about the weir going up to 4 gates were quickly replaced with worries about it dropping down to 2 gates: the joys of British boating! Thankfully it stayed on 3 though as a 2-gate level would have meant left-hand moves only.  

For most competitors the plan seemed to be to stay relatively safe and tick off some of the 'lower scoring' moves before finishing with some big moves - if you were still on by that stage. A few brave paddlers had the 'go big or go home' attitude. The former paid off more frequently than the latter, though throughout the day I heard several people saying 'did you see that huge airscrew/pan am/helix etc that I got after my competition rides!' - so, the big moves were possible, but not many people wanted/could land them in their rides because of the big green-ness mixed with the 'fear of flush' factor. 

The 3 places on the ladies team were all up for grabs and it really was an 'open' event, I had been watching Emily Wall and Lowri Davies perform consistently all week. I knew Claire O had only just learnt blunting at Hurley but she seemed to have mastered it and had been throwing some big air blunts and although Jen Chrimes had not had any practice on the wave she adapts to new features very quickly and I was expecting her to go big as well. And me? I was confident with the moves that I'd been doing throughout the week, but didn't think I would be able to land anything big on the level it was at, so it was going to be a case of staying consistent with relatively small blunts and back blunts on both sides and taking time to set up for them in the hope that I wouldn't flush early. 

The levels proved difficult for most of the ladies (and all of the other categories!) and just about everybody flushed early at some point - some earlier than others. I got a couple of blunts (maybe some air that scored) and back blunts/roundhouses on most of my rides

but I flushed early a couple of times off the left radial. I couldn't tell whether my blunts would have scored as such as the judges were above the wave and it was hard for them to see both the angle and the air though in the end I had scored enough for 1st place! Emily was really pleased with her rides and her 4th run had just about everything in it that she wanted to be there and she took a deserved 2nd place. Lowri proved to the rest of the field that not everyone flushed off the wave as she stayed on for the full 45 seconds on at least 2 of her rides racking up points and giving her the 3rd spot on the team. 

I didn't watch many of the other categories as I was adding up scores (not my own!!) though I heard that local boy Doug Cooper's training had paid off as he got some huge clean air blunts/pan ams and huge clean back blunts to give him 1st place. A few of the men's team regulars made it again: Jon Best, Alan Ward and Dicky Chrimes who are joined by relative newcomer Sam Anderson who put in some really consistent clean blunts to give him 5th place just 3.33 points ahead of local traveller Chris (Pikey) Bucksey. Notable absences from selection this year - Pringle who is still partying...ooops, I mean paddling, hard and video boating in Uganda and Ed Smith who has various University projects happening at the same time as the Worlds. 

The Junior men had a tie for 3rd place between Stu Parry (who had just made it onto the C1 team after only being in a C1 boat for a few weeks) and Joe Bradley. Their rides were totally different - Stu played it relatively safe and Joe was going for the bigger moves, though they ended up with equal scores so it was the highest scoring dropped ride that counted meaning Stu Parry took the team place with Joe Bradley in 3rd. Hurley regular Ben West put in several high scoring rides so he took 1st place with Arron Layton in 2nd. Its great to see some new faces on the junior team, but its also a shame that Joe didn't make it as I know he is usually a fantastic wave boater.

We were using some provisional new ICF freestyle rules for this event (which have since changed slightly) - the main difference between these and the rules used at the World Cup last year was the scoring of bonuses. The bonuses available were: air, clean, super-clean, huge and combo. And, because each basic move could only be scored once it meant that if you did a blunt, air blunt and a clean blunt you would only be scored blunt + air bonus + clean bonus, rather than also scoring the blunt part each time. This meant you may as well get your move done in one go: clean air blunt and then move onto something else. 

It seemed to work quite well though we didn't really test the combo bonuses as the wave was a bit flushy to do combo moves. These could prove to be quite complicated - if a combo bonus can only be scored once for each basic move what if the 2nd part of the combo is different each time?? We didn't need to answer that question though as the situation didn't arise, but hopefully the IFC will think about that before publishing their appendix. There were definitely a few other questions that arose as well - the answers to which also weren't clearly stated. Hopefully that will all get sorted with some tweaking before the Worlds in Switzerland! 

The squirt rules were a bit of a mess as well and I don't think they were used as was written - I believe there is a major typo in the IFC rules which means that just a second or two difference in downtime is so heavily weighted in its calculation that it could potentially score at least 2000 points more than any perfectly executed flatwater ride! There have been suggestions of using just a weighted carbon shell as if these rules are used the flatwater rides will basically become redundant and it will all be about who can hold onto the bottom of the river for the longest!! Health and safety issues -surely?? I believe Ben White (squirt judge) used a slightly more sensible system, but again hopefully this will get sorted in time for the Worlds and before people start to make their own carbon sinking machines!! 

Thanks to Cam for the photos. Unfortunately my camera battery had minimal juice in it - hence all the photos of me, just me! I'm sure photos of other people will be posted somewhere. 

Full results will be posted on UKFreestyle.com 

Uganda life 2009

I was recently back in Uganda for my regular short winter trip to sunnier climates. Being the weather witch that I am the water levels dropped pretty much the day we arrived, having been at perfect paddle-on levels for Nile Special since November!

This did mean that club wave was good,

Pringle clean blunts on club wave

Peter Csonka - air screw on club wave.




though it also meant that the club wave in the morning and Nile Special in the afternoon combination meant everyone was out on the water at the same time so it was usually busy, especially when some paddlers were taking up to 7 minutes on the wave!!

Eddy queue at club wave (photo: Georgie Preston)






As there is no longer a good playwave on the day 1 section most paddlers tend to just spend a couple of days at a time at NRE/Eden rock and then camp out at Hairy Lemon - so it was a busy Island, especially during the Northern Hemisphere winter-time when most countries are sensibly doing winter sports (unlike us British paddlers who have to paddle in our winter time!). So a mixture of Slovakian, Russian, Swiss, Austrian, Brits and Spanish frequented the Island. (I'm sure most were leaving shortly after I did, no doubt leaving a fairly empty eddy!)

We thought Mutts Nutts (on the day 2 section) would probably be working - a good way to avoid the queues at club wave. Unfortunately there is a really short window during the morning when this comes in and when we went up there it was too high to be working.

Nile Special was running at a low level but it seemed different to the last time I was there (Jan '07) which could have been because the water levels were still rising when it got to afternoon tow-on levels. Due to the dam work they were still releasing a fair amount of water, but only for a short time in the afternoon/evening which meant the highest levels (paddle on levels) got to Nile Special at about 3.00 in the morning. We did get up one night for a middle of the night raid, but unfortunately the moon was not out and I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face - we went back to bed!

Me, Nile Special (Photo: Claire/Gus/JC or Jim!)

So, the levels meant it was really flushy, often totally greening out and the eddy was horribly surgy. I'm sure at one time I could hear a voice whispering 'it's not as good as H....' :) We all perfected the front-surf-to-flush manoeuvre (which became affectionately know as the 'Poppadom') and were guaranteed to pull that one off far too many times during a session. However, it was also always possible to get some big air,




Me, Nile special air (Photo: Jen Chrimes)






and even just front surfing was, as always, good fun. The tricky bit was working out how to make the big bounces into a move.





Pringle - Nile Special air.



Everything else is still the same at Nile Special - the same boys are there working the rope (the girls are still working in their huts), though now they will sometimes wear a buoyancy aid and helmet (unlike some of the paddlers - don't know why, but I'm not sure what kind of impression that gives to the locals!). Though things have moved on as the children now ask paddlers for school fees instead of water bottles!

A local boy 'working the rope' (Photo: Jen Chrimes)








The Silverback section has changed a lot since I was last out there due to the dam work that has started.

Dam work at Silverback (Photo: Georgie Preston)




The most significant difference is the loss of both the Total Gunga rapid and the Ugly Sisters wave. However, the run down to Silverback is still good fun, though feels a lot shorter, and the prospect of a potential beatdown in Silverback always gets the heart racing. This was particularly the case for me after experiencing a full rapid-length airless beating where I rolled up several times but was still underwater! This rapid has changed massively over the years - in high water levels ('04) the waves were huge but relatively friendly, since then the height of the waves has decreased but at an inversely proportional rate to the power that they hold. The rapid had once again changed in the couple of weeks before we arrived due to rocks falling in from the dam-work and despite assurances from the dam-workers that no more would fall in - this is building work.... in Africa, so who knows what may happen!

Generally it is fairly easy to make the first 2 waves upright, but it was the 3rd one that would often get me. A few times I was a little too complacent when I made it through the 3rd one upright, gave a sigh of relief only to have the 4th one break hard on my head!

We took a girly road trip (note for future road trips: a 3 hour drive in Uganda uses half as much fuel as a 3-hour journey in GB!!) up to Sipi falls which is a great place to visit for a short break away from the river: lovely scenery,






















One of the many waterfalls at Sipi.








waterfall-walks and some fantastic food (cooked by paddlers!) at the fairly luxurious Sipi river lodge. I found it hard to believe that a group of British paddlers would be able to produce a place of the quality of the lodge - especially having seen them up to their extremely drunken antics in the NRE bar!! The've done a good job.

Despite the levels and the crowds it was a great trip, made all the better by the knowledge that I'd missed all of the snow in England (although, making snowmen may have been fun!). The dam work is continuing surely, but fairly slowly, and they have now 'guaranteed' that the river will stay the same until Spring 2010, so there's still a few more chances to get back out there and enjoy the day 1 section.

This is my grocery store! Outside NRE (Photo: Jen Chrimes)








I'm now training for the GB team selection event at Hurley, which is just a little bit different to Nile Special - update on that soon.

I've uploaded some photos on the Palm website. 

Scotland at New Year

'I'm glad we left the boats at home' was repeated several times during the week especially when looking at numerous frosted boats on top of car roofs in Morrison's car park, Fort William. There were apparently some crazy people that were desperate to paddle even on just a trickle of water amongst a whole lot of ice. Madness. 

I was constantly reminded of the time we were in the same area over 10 years ago (with some of the same group who we were with this time), only last time it was us driving from river to river and throwing a breeze-block sized brick off the Roy bridge every morning to optimistic, but very unrealistic (the rock was bouncing off the layers of ice below), comments of "it's definitely thawing, we should have water by the end of the week!" Distillery tours and walking by the side of frozen rivers kept us entertained on that particular trip and by the last day we finally realised 'it definitely wasn't thawing, and we weren't going to get any paddling done' 

I think that time in Scotland was the first of my 'weather-witch' epics, so thankfully now we have broadened our sporting repertoire and we have also lowered our boating-temperature threshold (Cam has a threshold of 8 deg C, he doesn't get much boating done in this country

 anymore!) so in view of the 'it's going to be really really cold and hasn't rained for weeks' weather-forecast we packed bikes, walking shoes and climbing harnesses (for indoor use only!) and the boats remained totally frost-free at home. 

It turned out to be great weather for biking (although occasionally a little too icy) as despite having to

 wear more thermals than usual and having frozen toes at the bottom of most of the hills, towards the top of the hills my feet were mainly thawed and we were blessed with blue skies,

 also the frozen ground meant no muddy kit/bikes at the end of the rides. 

Whilst there we took the opportunity to walk up a 'mountain' (it wasn't quite a mountain, but my legs thought it was).... 

And saw some great sunsets: 

Now back in Reading I have finished full-time teaching and unsurprisingly, given my Weather Witch status, it looks like Hurley is going to be on 1 gate very shortly and will most likely stay that way until I head out to Uganda at the end of the month.