Tawe; Back in a boat (and someone out of a boat)

It’s been a while since I have had the chance to update this blog. I have been to Cardiff White Water Centre a couple times, but not worth blogging about as it was just some playboating after I had been rafting during the day. Otherwise I have been playing polo, resenting the fact that it is taking up more time. If you wanna read about the polo side of the Stuff The Consequences be sure to check out Polo The Consequences blog.

However on Monday evening I managed to get a quick evening run on the Tawe with Procrastinate's Max Emery, Jonny King and Stu Sheath. It was an evening run because both Stu and I are working, so that students like Jonny and Max can continue to freeload through life.

The weather on Monday morning was horrible, which was promising for the water levels, but made the idea of going outside less appealing. An early decision was to attempt to run the Nant Clydach a few times so that the shorter daylight hours wouldn’t pose a problem. However the weather brightened up in the afternoon and it was clear that the Clydach wasn’t going to be on.

The choice was then left between the Mellte and Tawe; basically we knew that both of these runs could be done in time if we were on the ball. With the afternoon being mostly rain free, both runs were looking lower than originally thought. However as none of us have been in a boat for a while, the decision was made to just go have a look and jump on something.

Getting to the Mellte with Max and Jonny, the gauge was reading just below 6. This wasn’t ideal, and I was surprised as the water was as brown as fluids ejected in the art of Klismaphilia, but this must have just been because of the earlier rise in levels washing the banks. Stu turned up just after 17:00, and with sunset due for 18:53, the idea of walking out of the Mellte in the dark seemed unpleasing should it come to that, so we headed over to the Tawe. We knew there would be water, that we could have a little play and be off the water before it was too dark.

The gauge at the get on we use read around 0.45, which was higher than we last run it, but then that was scrapey low. We ran the shuttle and got ready to get on. Jonny, being the amazingly intellectual guy he is, didn’t bring a dry-cag with him. Obviously the cold evening wasn’t enough of a deterrent to get some warm clothing. He did contact Max 10 minutes before we were set to leave saying he was cag-less and there was one somewhere in Max’s garage, but no more detail than that. However, being the amazing handy chap I am, I had a spare that I lent him. Obviously his scrawny body was far too feeble to fill my cag, with the neck seal being as tight as a collapsed Squish Mitten, but at least it would provide some wind resistance.

The level was OK, and running down to the drop it was nice to have a play and be back in a boat. We had a few runs of the drop, as it was the most fun part of the river, and worked on our technique. On my first go, I came up to the lip at about 30 degrees, and my mind stopped. I didn't have a clue which side to boof stroke on, I was more muddled than a dyslexic staring at a Scrabble board, and I just penciled over. Luckily after that attempt, my mind got back into gear and I got the stroke on the others.

Max was keen for a Hammer over the edge, and decided to give it a go. Unfortunately he messed it up and pencilled the drop, ended up caught under the drop and swam. Luckily we saw two Swansea based paddlers there, and one of them was in the pool at the time and managed to get his boat to Max and pull him out. This was good, as both Jonny and I were at the top of the drop unable to do much. Max’s paddle exited before he did, and Stu managed to pull his boat out after. It was a noble attempt, crap but noble, and to be fair to him he had balls to give it a bash and commit to it. I was gonna give it a go, but getting to the lip, I froze and didn’t manage to get a stroke in, so also pencilled the drop. Luckily I managed to stay out of the towback, and there were no more swims recorded. A couple more runs and it was getting dark, so we continued on to the end. It was sweet to get back onto a river after so long, and hopefully with the winter months coming, more boating and blogging is to be had.

Have put a little edit together of us messing around on the drop, hope you enjoy. Unfortunately my GoPro fogged up as I didn’t have any Anti-Fog inserts