US National Whitewater Center Adventure

This place is interesting.

Last weekend, my son, David, and I went to Charlotte, NC, to play at the USNWC.  We checked out all the ways to play and then scouted the kayak layout, the whole 0.8 mile circumference.  (Not very big.) We noticed the eddies along the concrete shoreline were pretty powerful, with fairly quick upstream current.  And, we noticed the hole at the bottom of  the largest drop on the more difficult route (pictured above), which was near the bottom of that route.  And, we thought, interesting.  Let's go play.

The USNWC is a great playground.  You can mountain bike, climb walls, ride down a 1200 foot zip line, ride the white water in a rubber raft, and kayak if you have your own equipment.  They have various pricing alternatives, to fit what you want to do.  If you bring your own bike, and do nothing else, the cost is only the $5.00 parking fee per vehicle.  If you have your own kayak and want to do everything, the cost is $69 per person, plus the parking fee. 

I awakened that day a bit under the weather.  No, quite a bit under the weather.  But after the long drive, I was going anyway.  By the time they opened the white water, we chose to paddle first, and later decide what else we wanted to do.  We only kayaked.

Upon checking in, they warned us about the center having "powerful" eddies.  Since we had noticed them when we scouted we thought we understood.  We did not fully understand. 

There are 2 primary routes, easier on the left, and harder on the right.  Along the left you also have a choice of a short detour that is a bit tougher.

We decided to progress from the easiest to the hardest in the first 3 runs.  The first run was mostly uneventful.  However, being under the weather, I felt very tippy and uneasy.  Okay, I chose to deal with it, and go on.

On the 2nd trip we decided to take the short detour that was a bit harder.  I led and went through most the rapids, turning around to watch David before going through the exit drop.  That was dumb.  Bingo, I was upside down.  I thought, no problem, which shoulder is forward?  It was my left so I proceeded to set up to roll on that side.  No doing, I could not get my hands anywhere close to the surface.  So I switched underwater to the other side and stretched to set up.  Again no doing.  I was being pulled down as well as back and forth in the current and eddies.  I had not experienced that before.  I was bumping around and bashing my helmut on a few rocks.  So, I must have been moving, not stuck in a hole.  So, I switched back to the other side for a "successful" left-handed roll.  I was not to be denied.  The set-up was marginal, but I went for it.  Up I came.  And when I was nearly flat again, a new gremlin in the water grabbed the left rear of my kayak and pulled my back under.  That was enough for this old fart.  I was in a small, man-made concrete circle, why push it?  So, I wet exited to empty the kayak,  get a brief rest, and go again.

"Not so fast", the water said to me.  "We aren't done with you."  I could not get into an eddy, and I was careening down stream, feeling hell-bent for something I did not choose.  Alas, a raft guide brought his craft and his personal skills to my aid.  (This guide acted a lot differently here at USNWC than the ones we encounter on many of the natural rivers.)  He grabbed the kayak while simultaneously keeping his raft in an eddy.  Hanging onto the raft, I was able to pull myself along his perimeter lines until I too, was in the eddy.   With some great effort he got more than half the water out of the kayak, and returned it to me.  Now I could get to shore and deal with an unfriendly concrete shoreline, empty the boat, take a rest and go one.  I found David, waiting below the next drop, and we agreed he'd finish the run without me, ride the conveyor belt, and I might be ready to go upon his return. 

After finishing the run, I remembered a critique from Ben Lawry.  I, too often, was coasting and not paddling in rapids, as I often felt no need to.  So, Ben's advice had come screaming back to me.  We made several more runs as I paddled through the current, and nothing else even bothered me.  If it fits you, too.  Paddle on, Dude.  Paddle on.

David's subsequent runs were not so uneventful, but that's another story.

PrecisionMania Debuted

During Sweetwater Kayaks' Grand Re-Opening Sale and Celebration last Saturday we presented PrecisionMania as a warm-up act for Nigel Foster and his demo/class. It was quite a hit. Although several things went very wrong, we pulled it off successfully.  Doing them as planned will just make it better.

We expect to be performing the show at least twice per month during the rest of the fall and the winter.  Watch the calendars on both BigDsKayaking.com and SweetwaterKayaks.com for these events.

Bye!

PrecisionMania - Debut nears and roll disappears

Last summer I went to a white water camp put on by a friend, someone I look up to a lot. I really wanted to represent myself well. Then, a month or more before the camp my bomb-proof rolls went haywire. And, they did not return very quickly.

Now, this fall, we are nearing the debut of PrecisionMania, and with great nervousness, my wife's left-handed roll has suddenly faltered. Amazing stuff, these nerves. Her rolls have been rock solid for years.

We fixed both problems similarly. In my case, I had developed bad habits of setting up weakly and rolling with my arms, not my torso. In Donna's case, her left-handed roll had a rotten set-up and the sweep had disappeared. In both cases, the setups and sweeps needed to get fixed. The setup was easy. Have someone see what is wrong, tell you, and you fix it. But, the sweep is harder to solve. Interestingly, both sweeps were fixed the same way. We worked on the part that initiates the sweep. And, the rest came back immediately.

The sweep can be initiated with your head and shoulders, not your arms. In this method, the forward ear leads by moving out over the forward shoulder trying to get behind it. Since it cannot get behind the shoulder, the shoulder then follows the ear/head movement, and the arms and torso come last.

Since we each already knew how to roll, it was easy to finish once we had gotten the proper body movement started.

So, if your roll is not as consistent as you'd like, maybe it is in your setup and/or sweep. Of course, if your rolling technique does not include a sweep, you may not want to add one now.

I must roll along now. Bye. :-)

Rainbow River - For One - Sunday, 10-4-09

What a great day on the Rainbow River. Very few tubers. The boat ramp was nearly empty. The weather was wonderful. And, most of all the water was extra clear. I could even see the bottom in the Pole Hole - aka. Turtle Town. We also saw a few large gar fish just outside of Garfield. And we followed some fishing/eating otter as they cruised in the river below the takeout.

One one person went on the trip, the newly svelte Barbara. (She had lost 20 pounds since we saw her in late June.)

Remember, if only one paying customer is going on the trip - it will go.

The afternoon before it looked like we had 2 going. As is my policy, I called each to see if they wanted to go without a larger group and they both said yes, so the trip was on. Later, one person ran into difficulty, so it became just Barbara and I.

Stated another way, you can depend on any Big D event that is on our published calendar and in our newsletter. The newsletter is on Big Ds web site (calendar coming soon) , and both are currently on the Sweetwater Kayaks website.

PrecisionMania Practice

Donna and I have about 15 hours of practice putting together the show for PrecisionMania. We will be taking it on the road around west central Florida and symposia along the east coast.

I've often heard tandem kayaks referred to as divorce boats. Well, tandems can't hold a candle to doing close together synchronized paddling. I think marriage counselors could promote this activity and get quite a spike in their business. After so many years together (No it really is a lot of years. It doesn't just seem like a lot.) much of our communication skills seem to have fallen into knowing what they other person meant rather than listening to what they said. But, when challenged to do something new, the flaws sure came out - fast. The first 4 or 5 hours were especially hard. I was furious with Donna and she had to be pretty fed up with me. After several practice sessions we finally talked about what was going wrong. While neither of us was perfect, I sure have fallen into a broad gap between what I thought I said, and what I really had said.

Now, we have moved on. The act is progressing. Our communication is still improving, but still has a long way to go. At the pace of my improvement, I wonder if I will be alive long enough to get it right. The saving grace is learning what we are expecting and just doing it.

We hope you get to see the show and enjoy it. We expect it to keep evolving, growing, and getting better. But, for now it is already filled with oohs, ahhs, ahas, and hahas.