Saturday 9th March 2024
This was the third of four planned sessions for the beginners training.
It was attended by Giles W, Andrea H, Sally S, and Ray C and lead by two trainers Neil G and Mark M
We put in at Devils Bridge.
The weather wasn’t at its best as we’d hoped for a lovely blue sky and windless conditions…..we got a cold strong wind from the east, grey overcast sky and around 6 degrees!
Water levels were fairly low, we spent a lot of time practising breaking in out, spotting eddy’s and continued consolidation of the previous sessions, but this time a full journey, planned around 10K.
There was a mixture of river conditions, from the flat wide sections to near on dried out sections where we had to get out and walk down some scrapey bits or be kindly pulled down by our intrepid leaders!
The wind was strong enough to push the river boats around and make getting a straightish line pretty difficult ….all the sea kayakers found it interesting compared to the relative ease of steering a sea boat in similar conditions.
As we progressed down the river we encountered a lot more fairly strong flows and some significant eddies in which we practised, moving down one at a time and one paddler left the eddy, the new resident arrived!
There was a swimmer (me) where I misjudged the eddy and got sucked out of it and into the flow. Thanks for the assistance in getting me to shore Neil!
At this point we were close to the end of the day and Mark had his next river appointment on the Leven.
A very interesting day and a big thanks to Mark and Neil for giving their time, and good advice throughout the day
Ray C
Lakeland Canoe Club 