Middle Tawe - Sunday 27th January

You may have guessed, with the rain we've been having and the snow melt that comes with it, there was a fair amount of water in South Wales this weekend. I'm sure this sort of weather pattern would be seeing England warning of floods as well as homeowners frantically buying sandbags, but in Wales the norm has been restored. This is something that I have been waiting for, Christmas is now a distant memory as is the snow that followed. I have to say that I am not a Grinch; firstly because the Grinch eventually sells out and for some reason starts liking Christmas - When I've made my mind up about something, I stubbornly stick to my guns regardless of whether I am right or wrong; and secondly because I do not hate Christmas. I only dislike it as well as the snow and crappy Christmas cheer that seems to come along with it. Luckily the Christmas credit card bills and failing New Year resolutions brings the nation back down to earth :-)

With this, Jonny King and Stu Sheath, from Procrastinate, along with Lucie Parkinson and myself went for a paddle on the Tawe this Sunday just been. The four of us headed to the River, Jonny and I taking a minor detour as we were following a random car with boats on, and not Stu and Lucie, but we all ended up in the right place. The river was reading a 7.5 on the little gauge at the get on, and was looking high. The three of us decided that Lucie would be able to cope, mostly because she was going to be led by two manly men, and also Jonny! but also because we were just excited about getting on and didn't want to wait. With it being colder than the hairs on a polar bear's bum, we got into our gear quicker than a Prostitute having been paid and got the shuttle over in double time.

The start of the run was real quick down to the slides, and there were some sweet wave trains. Lucie was coping fine, which clearly displayed the talents of whoever was leading.

Now if you’re an avid STC reader, you may know that I always seem to have something derogatory to say about Jonny King. It's not that I try to be harsh, but he is as clueless as Shaggy and Scooby before the Advert break, and happens to be one of those chaps who is hard to paint in a good light.

Uncanny resemblance here!

Yet this Sunday he was fairly on the ball, turning up on time-ish at Team House (Stu’s abode), as well as being switched on when we were on the river. However this slightly changed when we got to the fall on the Tawe (Pen y Cae), which Stu and I styled in a joint boof seeing us land at the same time. We were just like Tom Daley and Peter Waterfield, landing in the pool with perfect synchronicity, only we have better abs and Stu looks a lot younger than Tom as well as me being a lot paler than Peter.

The lads trying to emulate our moves; however Peter, it looks like your hands are half a foot lower than they should be!

Stu and I showing the way to run a drop

Jonny's first run

Lucie's run

I freeze framed these images whilst they were on the lip to avoid showing how neither of them managed the drop well ;-), and I definitely haven't shown an image of me running for the third time as this was a disaster

So as Jonny was walking up to have another run, Stu had a cracking idea of getting all three of us to drop off at the same time. What we hadn’t factored in was Jonny’s inability to control his boat during the very short free fall. Adding him to the mix was unfortunately similar to smothering BBQ Sauce over an exquisite filet mignon with peppercorn sauce, which is what I imagine a fat American would do. Much like the tenderness of the beef fillet being enhanced by the fiery peppercorn creaminess, Stu and I made glorious kayaking art together. However when Jonny was placed in-between the two of us, he managed to turn sideways whilst running the drop, landing his stern on top of me and cutting my ear, and landing his bow underneath Stu, completely destroying the former magic the two of us had previously made.

The three of us lining up. It looks so promising

Lucie took a knock to the head further down the run, ending up in a swim. I scrambled out of my boat in the nick of time, got my throwbag ready and threw the line just as she was swimming past. The unfortunate reality of the situation was that the line ended about 3 meters upstream of her, and therefore was no use at all. Stu and Jonny managed to sort the situation out and we got to the bottom feeling happy about a good run.

Driving back to the top, we met up with the Cardiff Uni Kayakers, who were preparing to jump on. Jonny, Stu and I were already set for another run, and said that we would get on with them. Unfortunately this is when the faffing began. We thought Jonny was able to faff like no other, but apparently as he was on time today, the world's 'faff books' needed to be balanced, and it was Cardiff Uni to the rescue. It took about an hour for the Uni lot to get themselves in a fit state to jump on. If it ever came to a nuclear evacuation, these lot would be left behind due to their shear inability to move above a snail’s pace. They would probably be able to get far enough away to avoid being melted by the blast, and just receive a good old radiation dose. (However it did work for Spiderman, and although I’m not recommending it, you can clearly see the benefits in The Amazing Spider-Man movie).

The gauge was showing around a 6 by the time we got back, and this was fairly obvious from the character of the river. The run was still good fun, and the main rapids were fairly well styled by the uni. Chris Corkill nearly re-arranged his face on one of the slides, but managed to just get his arm in the way first and Helena Goode did an amazing 360 spin whilst descending the same slide. It would have been great to say it was on purpose, but alas, I fear it was accidental. It was a cracking day, and good to see the rust off that had settled over the festive period.

The evening ended with the traditional curry in the Balti Cuisine on Woodville Road, where I had a cracking meal, albeit one not in line with a tradition athlete's diet. Jonny and Stu tried to show their manliness by going for a hot curry (the names of which escape me), but this manly facade soon crumbled when Jonny started crying and sweating like a fat child being made to run!

Once again, thanks for reading.
Till next time...

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