Date: 14/05/2016 Time: 12:00pm - 5:00pm Location: Westcoast, Between Ross and Hari Hari Rivers/Sections: upper and lower Kakapotahi River level: High. People: Stefan Feiss, Lucas McDonald, Luke, Timmothy Weather: Overcast, very cloudy and grey. Incidents: Luke got stuck in a very tight spot, very lucky to get out. Personal Time. Comments: Went to paddle the Kakapotahi river with some of the Christchurch boys. Left one car at the take out of lowers and drove to the put in of the upper section. Saw Barney and Eric, they shuttled our car back to the takeout. We took a look at the gage rock. Was slightly underwater indicating that the upper section was high but runable. Had a talk about it, how everyone was feeling, should we go in, what's the weather going to do. We decided to go in. Top rapids went well, no swims or incidents which was good. Portaged the rapid after Postmens. Scouted airmail rapid. Luke and I went first while the boys ran limited safety, (Could only set up throwbag cover to a certain point of the rapid). We decided to truck and trailer. He went first, I followed. Airmail drop was good, broke through two holes, started to line up the tight exit. Luke flipped after the buffer wave right before the tight exit and got stuck in a very tight spot. I managed to push past him and still make my line, but he was in a lot of trouble. His paddle floated down, I caught it and threw it into an eddy on river left. I signalled to the safety crew that I couldn't see luke, but neither could they. The safety crew wasn't able to get visual on him nor get down to him. I scrambled out of my boat and onto some rocks where I could see his boat still stuck in the middle of the rapid. I saw him and believed he was in a lot of trouble. I quickly made the decision that I was going to swim across the river and make my way back up towards him. I jumped in the river and swam across, climbed up a cliff and made my way to where he was located. I was very scared because I thought he was pinned or couldn't hold on much longer. When I got down to him I saw he was okay and managed to get out and sit in a small eddy. (so relieved) I helped him get up the cliff and we pulled his boat out and signalled to the boys that we were okay. Afterwards we decided that I would stay there in case anyone else gets stuck in the same spot. Other than that, was a really good day, Started to run out of daylight so we bombed through lowers and managed to get off before it started raining and getting dark. Good day, Learnings would have been a bit more urgency on my half when rescuing Luke. I hesitated a bit. But all ended well.
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