New toy :)

Desparation is a terrible thing! I picked up my new Diesel 70 on Friday, and despite it being one of the coldest weeks all year I just had to get it out on the water over the weekend. Unfortunately there wasn't much water anywhere, mostly just snow and ice. Brr!

Having settled on the Castleconnel section of the Shannon as one of few places with water, and persuaded some other poor misfortunates to come with me, we then had to spend a while taking ice off our gear. I'd left my booties in the car overnight, and they were crunchy when I took them out - nice! For once I was glad of my gloves too.

First impressions of the Diesel 70 are good. It feels bigger than my old Diesel 65, the nose especially, but I'm sure that'll just take a bit of getting used to.

As you can see from the photos, water levels weren't huge. I was still able to give the new toy a spin though, catching eddies, ferry gliding, surfing small waves all no problem. It also rolls easily, though I only tried that one once - once was enough!

Can't wait to get it out on a bigger river now, hopefully all this ice turns into water soon! :)

Freestylin' in the Surf

This video was made almost a month ago now during one of the most active few weeks of paddling I had put in in long, long time. The amount of paddling done over those few weeks was completely the result of a long period of savage surf and rain fall in the South East. Magicseaweed.com posted solid surf reports for almost three weeks solid, something I've never seen (not that I'm drawing for any great numbers of years of experience or anything) and Tony and myself made sure to take full advantage of it. So here is the result, a short video for the day after the best days surf of the whole period and myself and tony were on top form. The footage was shot at Bunmahon beach in County Waterford from a top the cliffs surfers left by Kevin Jennings and Eoin Keane, Thanks Guys! There is also another hour of footage shot by Aisling O'Neill, that we have yet to watch so thanks to Aisling for standing in the rain that day footage to follow soon. Hope you enjoy and have a Happy X-mas and hopefully I'll see you all on the water in Kerry for New Years.

Oct/Nov Gorge Games Training

Gorge Games Training for the Waterford I.T. crew began good and early this year. Having floated through the the first half of first semester with little or no water things certainly kicked right off at the end of October with numerous floods. The first days training was a warm-up / welcome back to your creek boat session, on the the River Nire near Ballymaccarbery on October 29th. The day didn't go so well, about 10 minutes in Mr Tony Walsh came a cropper on a tree and baled out. Having narrowly missed the full length of a 20m throw rope by an arms length, what followed was a mile and a half long swim for Tony during which he lost his boat, paddles, throw rope and deck. Tony was safely recovered slightly battered but it would be a couple of days before all his gear would be recovered, his boat being the last, turning up lodged in a strainer not far from Clonmel on the River Suir!

The very next day a group of us set out in search of Tony's gear and some much lower water levels. The Nire was much more welcoming and Colm, Darren, MJ and myself set out. Cold, clear water had replaced the brown torrent from the day before and an enjoyable days paddling produced a number of swims and some good lines on the big rapids by our newbie Colm but unfortunately none of tony's gear.

Darren Flynn shoots through the first tough rapid on the Nire with ease and class and a very dodgy paddling face!

Colm O'Neill on the big rapid on the Nire

With plenty of day light to spare and good water levels reported on Colligan Gorge itself we set off. The levels were very high indeed and a mock race from the start line ended in another swim and a victory for MJ. The task of having to carry our boats back to the top without the aim of the gorge games bridge proved to much for some and so we messed about in the Salmon Leap for a while.

Body boarding at the Salmon Leap begins!

Closer inspection of a pile of rubbish in an eddy beside the Salmon Leap produced a body board which provided all the entertainment till dark. Disposable probes MJ and Colm experimented with "mid rapid aerial take off" maneuvers, "body board eddy break outs" and a full run of falls for MJ emerging slightly winded but in one piece!

MJ in full flight, body board in hand

Colm breaks out in to the big flow, eddying out will be a very different story

A short dry spell, combined with Tony gathering his many lost pieces of gear stalled paddling for a while but the week in the run up to the games saw us on the gorge almost every day, even up until 6pm the night before. Paul, Eoin, Tone and Paddy were busy making good warning signs, fancy banners and one kick ass new bridge! While they were busy myself and Tony made us of the high water. Getting in multiple runs before a bit of surfing in the hole at the bottom of the salmon leap.

Pity Tony can't read!

Tonys a blur at these kind of levels

How much edge is too much edge? I try to nail the line outta of the Salmon Leap

Surfing the hole in my creeker

All our prep was done, now all that was left to do was to enjoy the day which we did and the party after!

Is he a Hermit Crab? - The Portage Pack

So over the past while in the shop, I've noticed something that is beginning to worry me. James, the divemaster, is beginning to act more and more like the fish from the Aquarium. Always making these funny faces, eating the fish food, smelling a bit odd, you know, like a fish.
Then yesterday, i walk in, and he's taken the opportunity to use the new portage pack as his shell and he's walking sideways everywhere and eating pretty much anything.
We've all been keen to try and get James more interested in the boats, but this is not what we had in mind, Lets just hope he doesn't notice the big fins on the surfboats.

http://www.pyranha.com/portagepack

Wish You were Weir :)

For a brief day or two our lovely weir at the Lee Fields became a pretty sweet wave.
It was small fast and flushy, but with a little practice made for some great rides and also made alot of wave moves possible.

The wave was formed as a fairly ginormous tree got washed downstream and wedge on the lip of the weir. This diverted water onto to lovely wave.

We did not get many pics as we were selfish and demanding paddling time on this lovely little wave. But here are a few from friday when four fantastic freestylers flopped furiously on the fantastic wave.

Some of the shots are quite blurry as we stayed paddling til it was too dark to keep going :)

Bryan's Clydagh / Flesk trip report

And so it was on a wet and windy Saturday in Kerry I found myself sitting in the jeep waiting for Muireann and Colin to arrive.

The flesk was reading 1.4 on the gauge and we had some serious paddling to do!

When the lads arrived and after a quick chat we decided to run the clydagh too. We met up with the gang from Silverbridge Kayak Club in Drogheda at the get in and hopped on for a great day on the water.

With a few trips in the new liquid logic Jefe under my belt I was eager to try out the new adjustments I made to the fittings. Confirming again to me how important it is to spend the time on tuning a boat for a individual person..

Great to see people braving the wind and bad weather for a paddle on one of the best runs in Kerry. There were thrills and spills all the way down with some great lines down the slide! I have to report that my new Snap dragon amortex spray deck did the job wonderfully!

Fair play to the Drogheda gang who ran the slide and on down through the gates of the flesk.

Team training for the colligan gorge games is coming along nicely.

Stay tuned for more updates, thanks to Muireann for supplying the photos.

Bryan

National League wrap-up

Aaaand finally! The last competition of the '09 Freestyle League was on in Lucan Sluice last weekend. This was a great competition with the emphasis all on the fun. This competition was run as a jam session, so each heat is 15 minutes long, and competitors can go in as many times as their arms and lungs allow, with their top 5 moves counting. This means you can really go for the big moves, without having to worry about flushing, since you can always go again! From a competitors perspective, it's great fun, but very tiring, by the end of the heat your arms are falling off. From a judges perspective, we definitely saw people trying some big stuff, especially in the Men's Expert class, where Tom popped one of the biggest loops I've ever seen, and Bowsie landed a donkey flip and mcnasty. For the sports classes - plenty to keep them amused too, with points for fun moves like air guitar, and paddle spins.

Tony goes old school in a new school boat with the rail grab

While the scores from the heats were being added up to keep the crowd amused, we had an "old school" rodeo, rules were boats must be pre - 2000, and we saw some nice ribbed BA's, luminous cags, and dodgy looking helmets. I had trouble recognising people I know quite well! Big big popouts were definitely the order of the day here. Those long boats go big.

Big boats fly apparently

Old School carnage

After all the freestyling was wrapped up, we had the boatercross. Juniors were up first with a mass start, and plenty of fighting. Sport class next - these guys were supposed to go without their paddles, but mutinied and refused - boooring! :-) After that the ladies were up - minus our spraydecks! I was in the lead up until I tried to cross the eddyline and turned in too sharply, and started sinking, maybe next time! Then the men's expert, also minus their spraydecks. These guys took no prisoners, and there was pushing and shoving a-plenty, and a Kamikaze Conor leaping from great heights in on top of the action to try and sabotage as many as possible.

Juniors wait for the carnage to unfold

That night we had partying and prizegiving in Blessington. Prizes were handed out for this competition, the overall prizes for the League, and the trophies were awarded to the new National Champions.

Me trying to cartwheel

Sunday saw a C1 and Squirt training day, as well as a release at Sluice for anyone who wanted to go back for more. I didn't make either of these myself, as I was lost up the Wicklow mountains at the time, but am assured it was good fun.

A big thanks has to go to all who made this, and the other events in the League happen. Organisers, prize-givers, judges, scribes, competitors, parents, spectators - thanks everyone :-) Hopefully next years season will be even better!

All pictures are thanks to Eoin O'Raghallaigh, more in his album here