Date: 07/05/2016
Time: 10:30am - 4:00pm Location: Westcoast Rivers/Sections: Arnold River River Level: 63 Cumecs People: tpp First Year students, 15 people Weather: Sunny, fine. Incidents: Lost one paddle. One swimmer. No split paddle. Personal Time Comments: The biggest mission I've managed outside of tech time in terms of people. We had 15 people on the river, 11 kayakers and 4 rafters. Big day of planning. Wasn't as organised as I could have been. I could have dedicated more jobs out to people instead of doing everything myself. Had a good safety talk before we got on the river with the kayakers. Talked about dangers like the raft, higher flow, being safe and making good decisions etc. Then got a safety talk from the rafters. Good practice. Split into 3 groups, Gat looking after one group, Sparrow one and I had one. Could of communicated better with Gatlin and Sparrow about how far apart each group was because we often found Sparrow's group was out of sight. Other than that everything ran smoothly in terms of people management. Jake lost a paddle while waiting in an eddy while I was running safety for the raft and other kayak groups on three hole. We put him in the raft and I towed his boat down. Didn't have a split paddle because it didn't fit in any of the boats. Gaby swam at pyramid rock. Gatlin rescued her and got her into an eddy. Was harder for him because he had a play boat. Had some throw bag practice at the get out. Was really good to do. Heaps of fun. Good learning and practice around people management.
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Date: 01/05/2016
Time: 10:30am - 2:00pm Location: Murchison Rivers/Sections: Buller River, Granity Run. River Level: 30 cumecs People: Nathan Stead, Gatlin Edes, Matt Sparrow, Ryan Colley, Justin Slierendrech Weather: Overcast Incidents: Justin hit his head on a rock and swam, Ryan took a swim Personal Time Comments: Justin hit his head at the end of granity rapid while playing in a hole, got dazed. I grabbed his boat and then got out of my boat and grabbed him. Took some time out on the side of the river to make sure he was okay. Decided he was all right and went for another lap on the main rapid. Ryan flipped in the middle of the rapid and took some rocks to the face and head. I stern deck carried him at the bottom until we were clear of rocks/rapids. He was okay. Decided not to go to Maruia when we got off because of the events of the day. Good day, lots of learning involved and a few rescues and good decision making. Date: 30/04/2016
Time: 1:30 - 4:30 Location: Murchison Rivers/sections: Buller River, Earthquakes section River level: 30 cumecs People: Nathan Stead, Gatlin Edes, Matt Sparrow, Tom Beadle, Ryan Colley, Justin Slierendrecht Weather: Overcast and cold Incidents: none Personal Time Comments: Good day, river was a little low. Managed the crew well, made sure everyone was feeling comfortable. Had a few first timers but we took them down with no swims or any incidents. Got a chance to manage people and safety hazards. good fun. Date: 23/04/2016
Time: 11:00am - 3:00 pm Location: Westcoast, between Ross and Hari hari Rivers/Sections: Lower Kakapatahi River Level: Full Flood People: Barney Young, Ryan O'connor, Shae Kitchin, Taylor Weston, James William Scoltock Weather: Heavy Rain. Incidents: Taylor W swam for about 2 kms Personal Time Comments: Pretty huge. Everyone walked the gorge, was way to big to paddle. Had to cross a stream which was very flooded. Barney jumped across attached to a throw bag. Everyone made it across safely. A lot of continuous paddling and dodging holes, very tiring. I was put in a dangerous position because of my fitness level. I'd find myself too tired to make moves. took a small hole above an eddy sideways and got surfed, flipped and then Taylor came in and launched under the front of my boat, also flipping. Both managed to get up fine. Taylor later swam, Barney chased his boat, James got his paddle and Shae looked after Taylor. Ryan would often get out before Shae and Taylor with a throw bag just in case they needed it. Taylor was in the water for a very long time, must have been 2kms before we found Barney with his boat. I was in the eddy below Barney, Shae missed the eddy and I caught them as the floated past. Good learnings and was pretty cool to see how the more experienced paddlers dealt with the situation. Date: 10/04/2016 Time: 11:45am - 4:30pm Location: Murchison Rivers/Sections: -Buller River, Granity, -Maruia River, Maruia Falls. River Level 45 Cumecs for buller, Meduim flow for Maruia People: Matt Sparrow, Justin Slierendrecht Weather: Sunny Personal Time Comments: Justin was heading back to Nelson so we decided we would spend the day in Murch with him before he leaves. Left Greymouth at 9:30am got to Granity put in just before 12. Buller River was sitting at 45 cumecs and dropping slowly. (Dropped heaps the next day) Sparrows first time down and the biggest rapid he has done at this point. Paddled down with no problems at all. Peaceful warm up before the main rapid. Got to main rapid, Justin and Sparrow got out above to have a look and I paddled it as they watched. I created some grade 4 moves by boofing the 2 main holes and catching a small eddy on river right above the rock face that creates a decent buffer wave. Paddled out of the eddy and surfed the buffer across to the small drop that the rock face creates, missed my boof and took a quick roll. Paddled to river right and ran safety for Justin and Sparrow. Justin had a good line but rolled in the same spot I did. Got back up just fine. Sparrow flipped in the first hole but pulled off a clean roll before flipping again in the same sport Justin and I had flipped. He struggled to roll back up as I ran down the river in case he swam (I had my throw bag) He attempted about 6 rolls (all caught on film) as I scrambled back to my boat. He then managed to get back up but with a popped spray deck. Justin was fast getting to them. I lost track of them and got in my boat and started to race down the river, luckily they were only 10 metres away but hidden in an eddy on river right and had lost no gear. Rest of the run was good and clean. Went to Maruia Falls afterwards. It was at a very nice flow, decent water coming off. Sparrow did safety at the bottom and Justin stood on the bank next to the falls to signal me when they were ready. First lap was very clean, perfect line off the falls. Justin then decided that he would run the falls. My next line was almost a disaster. Nose got turned by the small buffer wave on op of the falls, managed to put in a nice left stroke to combat this and landed nicely at the bottom. Justin followed down a few minutes after with a good line. Went slightly over the handlbars but came out just fine. My third line was unsuccessful, buffer wave caught my nose again but this time I wasn't able to combat the push and it sent my boat deep into the curtain. Pressure of the waterfall landed on my spray deck and popped it off. I was still upright but my boat was mostly underwater (Luckily I have air bags) Justin tried to tow me as whiled I paddled, this was unsuccessful and I ended up swimming out of my boat to the bank with my paddle and Justin saved my boat. Very good day, no major accidents. NeviDate: 24/01/2016
Time: 12:20pm - 4:30pm Location: Queenstown Rivers/Sections Kawarau River, -Nevis Bluff -Citreon -Retrospect Level: 145 Cumecs Weather Overcast, fine, moderate temp. People: Max Rayner, Nick Pascoe, Robert "Foxy" Hervey, James Phemister, Joeseph Jurry Personal Time Comments: The Nevis Bluff is big. Biggest water I have ever paddled so far. Second time I've done it. While we were on our way there Foxy actually texted asking if we wanted to do it which was pretty funny at the time. No incidents at all. Everything ran smoothly. However, the first part of the Nevis Bluff I was too close behind Max and found myself catching up behind him while we manoeuvred around the first big hole. A little chaos but worked out fine. Ran the rest of the rapid well, only took one roll. James took some photos and didn't run the bluff but ran Citroen with us. Foxy took out after the bluff. Citroen was good. Clean lines. Walked retrospect, Max got a pretty weird line though, did some sort of kickflip back deck thing. no one swam. Date: 24/01/2016
Time: 9:00am - 4:30pm Location: Wanaka Area Rivers/Sections Young River Level: Medium Low Weather: fine, moderate temp. People: Max Rayner, Nick Pascoe, Haans Paraki-Webber, James Phemister, Marcus Norbury Personal Time Comments: Massive walk, especially because it was my first one. Took us just over 2 hours to the put in. River wasn't as tricky as I first thought it would be but still provided an interesting experience with technically rapids and a few good drops. Took it slow and scouted as much as we could. No incidents, everything went smooth. Max and Nick were very good at guiding us down the river and provided us with good safety cover. |
Jonathan SmithThese are my adventures in my pursuit of whitewater kayaking Archives
January 2018
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