I got back from Uganda this morning. I'm exhausted after all the travelling but really pleased with the trip overall. The last few days of paddling were pretty action packed as I was paddling quite a bit. We took on some more back channels, multiple Silverback runs as well as hitting up Kalagala and the day 2 run again to help Enda get his confidence back after a particularly scary swim.
Enda came on a back channel run with myself and Jethro a few days ago. We went over to run Blade Runner, the leftmost of the back channels, which has a large hole to dodge at the entry to the channel before the rapid. The move to dodge the hole is tight and the consequences of missing it, as we found out, can be quite severe. A small submerged rock bounced Enda away from the eddy and backwards into the hole where he took a severe beating for quite some time. Jethro and I rushed to get a rope ready to send in to pull Enda out, but the hole was pulling hard to the right (towards the entry to Escape Hatch/Widow Maker) so by the time we were ready Enda was too far away for us to reach. After hanging on for what seemed like an eternity from the eddy Enda came out of the boat and swam. He was just upstream of the island separating Blade Runner from the Escape Hatch/widow maker channel and swimming hard back towards us. Unfortunately he didn't make it and there was nothing Jethro and I could do as we watched him wash down towards the other channel. We broke out of the eddy and ran down Blade Runner blind and then ferried across the bottom of Escape Hatch to see Enda floating way off downstream having just swam through Escape Hatch (the line I'd missed when trying to paddle it only a few days before). It was still a very rough swim, especially after the beating he took in the top hole, but miraculously he didn't end up in Widow Maker. Thankfully a group of rafts who'd been running Bujagali spotted us and helped Enda into their raft while Jethro and I caught up. We were all quite shaken by the whole incident, Enda walked off at that point and Jethro and I finished the run. Even after such a rough experience Enda was back paddling the lower section again in no time to build up his confidence again and after a couple of days was styling the lines down Vengence and Kula Shaker.
During our last couple of days I pushed myself hard to get a clean run of the Silverback rapid. the water levels were up somewhat on what they had been which made this a bit more challenging and the results were pretty much the same; some fantastic air as the waves threw me about and then an almighty kicking as the main wave crashed on me. But I'm happy to report that on Tuesday, our last day of paddling, I managed a clean run. We did an early morning run, before we even had breakfast and it was a great way to wake up. It was the first time I actually made it to see the main Silverback wave (the fourth BIG one in the train) every other time I'd either been airborne or capsized when I hit it. But this time I made it upright to see this giant wall of water jack up in front of me. I'd like to say I got through it owing to some particular skill but it was a bit of a hit and hope moment, thankfully I timed everything right and managed to ride up the face and punch through the foam pile before it crashed on me and ended up with a clean run. With my goal for the trip accomplished I was grinning the whole way back to the campsite on my boda.
I took it easy for the rest of the morning and started making some preparations for packing up to leave on Wednesday but after such a good run in the morning I was temped back out onto the water. A small group of us went out for another run taking in Blade Runner and on down to Silverback. To my surprise the same move worked on Silverback the second time around as well so I came off the water thrilled with my double clean run. At this point i suppose it was karma that on the way home my boda broke down twice, ran out of petrol, and managed to get lost. Maybe I should have known something was up when he arrived to pick me up and proceeded to spend 5 minutes using a stick to remove mud and gunk from the engine of his bike. But with no other option for getting back there was little else I could do other than take a lift. When we ran out of petrol the driver took off into the jungle leaving me standing on the trail with the bike and not much of a clue when or if he'd even be back. Thankfully, after about 10 minutes he reappeared (from a different direction than where he set off) holding a coke bottle with a minute amount of petrol in it. It seems it was enough to get us home which makes me wonder what exactly those engines are running on.
So after two clean Silverback runs and an eventful trip home I decided to call an end to my paddling for the trip and end it on a high note. We went into Jinja to have a decent dinner before packing up and leaving on Wednesday.
So with the Uganda trip over I'm working on pulling together photos and videos from everyone we paddled with over the course of the trip. I'll post those along with some commentary as soon as I get them. As for what the future holds for paddling adventures there's a lot on the cards. A few of us discussed a short mission to Turkey next year sometime so that could be on the cards, or maybe even a return to Africa.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Hitting up the back channels
We've been based back up at the NRE station for a few days now and I'm still trying to tame the Silverback and actually get down it without a roll. It's an ambitious task because there's so much luck involved but it's possible so I'm going to keep trying to get a clean run.
I've also started paddling the back channels of Bujagali Falls to tick them off the list. I've run Brickyard a few times now at different water levels it's a great little run with some big holes to punch and a pour over to dodge at the very end, but it's a nice steep fast run as long as you can stay off your tail and not get looped. Which, I've managed to do so far. Blade Runner is the leftmost of the back channels and is a really picturesque rapid. The line is relatively simple to run but finding it if you mess up the entry move through a sticky hole would be difficult and it's definitely one you want to avoid a roll on. I'll definitely be heading over to that part of the river again to get some pictures of Blade Runner, though I'll have to borrow a camera as mine has stopped working for some reason (Junior, you'll be getting a call when I get back).
I also went over to do Escape Hatch, which is just above Widow Maker and earns its name from the fact that you start running Widow Maker and then ferry HARD left for about 70 metres across the river right above the drop into Widow Maker. Unfortunately for me I dropped into some holes on the run in which took off a lot of my speed so when the time to make the move came I didn't have the speed to make the ferry to the left. Widow Maker at the current water levels is aptly named, it'd be a terminal run. Thankfully, having missed the move to run Escape Hatch there's still a last ditch option before Widow Maker. I paddled like I've never paddled before, ferrying to the hard right hand side to catch a last ditch eddy just above the lip of Widow Maker from which (after taking a few minutes to compose myself) I was able to run down another channel and into the second part of Brickyard.
Shaken and somewhat stirred I called it a day for paddling that day and went back to camp to review the footage from the headcam. Unfortunately the video quality doesn't show Widow Maker very well. But I can certainly say I've had a good look at it and been as close to it as I'm planning to go unless something drastic happens the water levels before I go home.
On the lower section, I ran Kalagala the other morning which is a very impressive looking drop on the channel next to Hypoxia. The run itself is mainly psychological, the hardest part is paddling out of the eddy. After that you just avoid a small hole and then paddle hard down close to the right bank so that you don't drop into a keeper hole on river left of the drop. There is a significant amount of water going over the drop so the landing is quite violent and regularly breaks paddles. That said it didn't thrash me around quite as much as I expected. However, I did end up caught in an eddy that is fenced off by the outflow from the drop. After battling for about 10 minutes there was a gap in the surges and I managed to paddle out and down into the rest of the rapid. I think next time I won't go quite as far to the right and won't have to deal with the eddy. Enda took some good photos of my run, which I'll post up once we're back to civilisation and reasonable internet speeds.
I've also started paddling the back channels of Bujagali Falls to tick them off the list. I've run Brickyard a few times now at different water levels it's a great little run with some big holes to punch and a pour over to dodge at the very end, but it's a nice steep fast run as long as you can stay off your tail and not get looped. Which, I've managed to do so far. Blade Runner is the leftmost of the back channels and is a really picturesque rapid. The line is relatively simple to run but finding it if you mess up the entry move through a sticky hole would be difficult and it's definitely one you want to avoid a roll on. I'll definitely be heading over to that part of the river again to get some pictures of Blade Runner, though I'll have to borrow a camera as mine has stopped working for some reason (Junior, you'll be getting a call when I get back).
I also went over to do Escape Hatch, which is just above Widow Maker and earns its name from the fact that you start running Widow Maker and then ferry HARD left for about 70 metres across the river right above the drop into Widow Maker. Unfortunately for me I dropped into some holes on the run in which took off a lot of my speed so when the time to make the move came I didn't have the speed to make the ferry to the left. Widow Maker at the current water levels is aptly named, it'd be a terminal run. Thankfully, having missed the move to run Escape Hatch there's still a last ditch option before Widow Maker. I paddled like I've never paddled before, ferrying to the hard right hand side to catch a last ditch eddy just above the lip of Widow Maker from which (after taking a few minutes to compose myself) I was able to run down another channel and into the second part of Brickyard.
Shaken and somewhat stirred I called it a day for paddling that day and went back to camp to review the footage from the headcam. Unfortunately the video quality doesn't show Widow Maker very well. But I can certainly say I've had a good look at it and been as close to it as I'm planning to go unless something drastic happens the water levels before I go home.
On the lower section, I ran Kalagala the other morning which is a very impressive looking drop on the channel next to Hypoxia. The run itself is mainly psychological, the hardest part is paddling out of the eddy. After that you just avoid a small hole and then paddle hard down close to the right bank so that you don't drop into a keeper hole on river left of the drop. There is a significant amount of water going over the drop so the landing is quite violent and regularly breaks paddles. That said it didn't thrash me around quite as much as I expected. However, I did end up caught in an eddy that is fenced off by the outflow from the drop. After battling for about 10 minutes there was a gap in the surges and I managed to paddle out and down into the rest of the rapid. I think next time I won't go quite as far to the right and won't have to deal with the eddy. Enda took some good photos of my run, which I'll post up once we're back to civilisation and reasonable internet speeds.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
A Couple of Days at the Lemon
We spent a couple of days this week down on the lower section of the river staying on an island in the middle of the river called the Hairy Lemon. It's a lovely relaxing spot just a short paddle from the Nile Special rapid which has the world reknowned Nile Special playwave as well as some less well known but equaly good features. We were doing two paddling sessions a day up there. In the morning we'd hit the club wave just after breakfast for a few hours, break for lunch and then wait in the shade while the midday heat passed and the water levels came up to make Nile Special work.
Getting onto the Special is something of a black art in itself, unless the water levels are quite high you have to be towed onto the wave using a rope and getting the knack of towing on while paddling with one hand and staying upright on such a big bouncy wave is quite tricky. That said once you're on there it's worth the effort. The wave is incredibly fast, and equally big. The end result being a lot of airtime as your boat planes and starts to bounce, a LOT. It was a really good couple of days for me up there and while I fell off the rope and had to battle the wave train more times than I can count, I managed to pull off a few blunts on Special and land a loop on the Club wave. It just goes to show, with the right feature, even I can manage some of these moves.
We're back at the NRE again now, it's a better place to pick up a gang to go running the river with instead of just hitting up the play spots. I ran the Brickyard rapid with a French guy called Ollie the evening before we left for the Lemon. It's a great little run, but difficult to get a look at without getting very close. So having run one of the back channels the plan for the next couple of days is to get a few more done as well as trying to run Silverback clean before we leave (I was counted at 6 rolls on my last run down it). This afternoon's project is to run Kalagala, which is a very visually impressive drop with a really nasty hole on one side. But the line itself is wide and clean so technically it's not very demanding, there's only one move to make, you just have to make it.
Getting onto the Special is something of a black art in itself, unless the water levels are quite high you have to be towed onto the wave using a rope and getting the knack of towing on while paddling with one hand and staying upright on such a big bouncy wave is quite tricky. That said once you're on there it's worth the effort. The wave is incredibly fast, and equally big. The end result being a lot of airtime as your boat planes and starts to bounce, a LOT. It was a really good couple of days for me up there and while I fell off the rope and had to battle the wave train more times than I can count, I managed to pull off a few blunts on Special and land a loop on the Club wave. It just goes to show, with the right feature, even I can manage some of these moves.
We're back at the NRE again now, it's a better place to pick up a gang to go running the river with instead of just hitting up the play spots. I ran the Brickyard rapid with a French guy called Ollie the evening before we left for the Lemon. It's a great little run, but difficult to get a look at without getting very close. So having run one of the back channels the plan for the next couple of days is to get a few more done as well as trying to run Silverback clean before we leave (I was counted at 6 rolls on my last run down it). This afternoon's project is to run Kalagala, which is a very visually impressive drop with a really nasty hole on one side. But the line itself is wide and clean so technically it's not very demanding, there's only one move to make, you just have to make it.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Paddling Update
We've managed to run the whole of the main whitewater sections of the White Nile over the last few days. Yesterday we took out above Itanda to meet our shuttle and scout the rapid. It's massive, but the line is definitely possible. But I'm going to wait a while before I consider running it. We did a run from the campsite down to Silverback this morning which could have gone better. Enda had a swim just above Bujagali Falls and despite my best efforts to get him or some of his gear to an eddy he ended up swimming right over the centre line nearly taking me with him. I managed to get myself over to run a different line (so as not to drop in on top of him) and we met up in the pool below. He's got a few bumps and scrapes but I think his confidence is more damaged than the rest of him is at the moment. He lost his paddle somewhere in one of the holes that he was stuck in. So he's been talking to the locals offering a reward for its return.
Enda walked off the run at that point and the rest of us went on. The run went fine for me with nothing more than the usual surprises, a whirpool opening up underneath me in the middle of a rapid, and then getting thrown completely airborne on Silverback itself. I'd heard stories of the waves doing that but it's difficult to imagine it happening until it happens to you. I was only sorry i didn't have the helmet camera on for that. So while Enda was being looked over by our new friend Pierre, who's a trauma surgeon from London paddling here for a few weeks, I set to work mounting the camera on my lid and securing it with a mess of cable ties. So now I'm off to round up a gang to go run that section again and get some footage.
Enda walked off the run at that point and the rest of us went on. The run went fine for me with nothing more than the usual surprises, a whirpool opening up underneath me in the middle of a rapid, and then getting thrown completely airborne on Silverback itself. I'd heard stories of the waves doing that but it's difficult to imagine it happening until it happens to you. I was only sorry i didn't have the helmet camera on for that. So while Enda was being looked over by our new friend Pierre, who's a trauma surgeon from London paddling here for a few weeks, I set to work mounting the camera on my lid and securing it with a mess of cable ties. So now I'm off to round up a gang to go run that section again and get some footage.
Hello Mzungu!
I tried to post this 2 days ago but the internet connection here is so slow and so sporadic that I couldn't.
So I've arrived safely and have had a couple of days on the river already.
Things didn't quite go to plan today when our lunches for the trip didn't
arrive till it was too late to do the run. This is how things work out here
it seems. The internet connection avaiable is sporadic at best, and
sometimes there's just no power.
We're staying at NRE for now while we're getting our bearings. It's a bit of
a dump at first but the place grows on you. The atmosphere is great, very
friendly and very relaxed. We'll probably move down to the Hairy Lemon next
week for a while.
On the water things have been going great. The water is incredibly high
volume out here, unlike nothing I've ever seen. It's really made me adjust
theway I paddle. Eddies are not somewhere you want to be on this river,
they're surging and boiling and will throw you about almost as much as the
rapid itself, and because there's so much water in them it's very difficult
to get out of them and back into the flow. So the end result is that you
just have to keep paddling hard and keep dodging the holes. the holes have
to be seen to be believed though. We were given a line to run yesterday
where we had to "dodge right of a bit of a hole" at one point. I was
wondering going into the rapid would it be easy to spot, and true enough it
was. As I was cresting the wave upstream of it all I could see was a hole
about the size of a minibus munching away after the nest wave. It was an
easy move to make to miss it but I'm wondering what a big hole looks like
out here if that was just a bit of one.
Off the water the locals are really great. They're very friendly and
everywhere you go there are kids waving at you shouting "hello mzungu!" (the
only English most of them have) and holding their hand out looking for some
money. Mzungu is the Swahili word for a white man I've learned, and the
locals insist that it is no way derogarory. It really is amazing how little
these people have, and how much they do with what they have got. They're
very resourceful and if they don't have anything they'll promise you the
world they can get it for you if you can throw them a few shillings.
So I've arrived safely and have had a couple of days on the river already.
Things didn't quite go to plan today when our lunches for the trip didn't
arrive till it was too late to do the run. This is how things work out here
it seems. The internet connection avaiable is sporadic at best, and
sometimes there's just no power.
We're staying at NRE for now while we're getting our bearings. It's a bit of
a dump at first but the place grows on you. The atmosphere is great, very
friendly and very relaxed. We'll probably move down to the Hairy Lemon next
week for a while.
On the water things have been going great. The water is incredibly high
volume out here, unlike nothing I've ever seen. It's really made me adjust
theway I paddle. Eddies are not somewhere you want to be on this river,
they're surging and boiling and will throw you about almost as much as the
rapid itself, and because there's so much water in them it's very difficult
to get out of them and back into the flow. So the end result is that you
just have to keep paddling hard and keep dodging the holes. the holes have
to be seen to be believed though. We were given a line to run yesterday
where we had to "dodge right of a bit of a hole" at one point. I was
wondering going into the rapid would it be easy to spot, and true enough it
was. As I was cresting the wave upstream of it all I could see was a hole
about the size of a minibus munching away after the nest wave. It was an
easy move to make to miss it but I'm wondering what a big hole looks like
out here if that was just a bit of one.
Off the water the locals are really great. They're very friendly and
everywhere you go there are kids waving at you shouting "hello mzungu!" (the
only English most of them have) and holding their hand out looking for some
money. Mzungu is the Swahili word for a white man I've learned, and the
locals insist that it is no way derogarory. It really is amazing how little
these people have, and how much they do with what they have got. They're
very resourceful and if they don't have anything they'll promise you the
world they can get it for you if you can throw them a few shillings.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Helmet camera has arrived and packing started
To my relief I arrived into work this morning to an email from the post room telling me a parcel had arrived for me. As expected it was my helmet mounted video camera. Many thanks to Doug Low, the eBay seller who rushed my camera to the post office so it would get to me in time.
A quick dunk in the sink has proved that the headcam *is* in fact waterproof, but the internal memory will only record for just under a minute so I'll have to wait till tomorrow when I get memory cards to give it a full test.
There are plenty of mounting options for me to play with, none of which I'd describe as perfect. But they're certainly functional.
Here we see the camera mounted on my Shred Ready FMJ which is my main lid. The mounting here is just a rubber strap. Which is a bit fiddley to get on, but grips surprisingly well given that it doesn't pass through anything fixed to the helmet.
However, I've been told by those that know that the power of the water in the Nile is quite incredible compared to what I'm used to. So, on Ronan's advice I'm bringing a sieved helmet that'll spill water when I'm getting washed around.
So I tried mounting the camera on my Pro Tec lid. The drainage holes allow me to strap the mounting bracket on more easily and also to put the camera on the top of my head which makes it better balanced and so I'm less conscious of it being there.
I started getting everything ready to pack up and go on Wednesday evening. My paddling gear is nice and dry, the tent is in good nick, and I think I've everything else ready to go. Big Enda is coming to Dublin tomorrow and we'll run through our final checklists, do a panic buy of whatever we've forgotton and then retire to the pub before flying out on Sunday.
A quick dunk in the sink has proved that the headcam *is* in fact waterproof, but the internal memory will only record for just under a minute so I'll have to wait till tomorrow when I get memory cards to give it a full test.
There are plenty of mounting options for me to play with, none of which I'd describe as perfect. But they're certainly functional.
Here we see the camera mounted on my Shred Ready FMJ which is my main lid. The mounting here is just a rubber strap. Which is a bit fiddley to get on, but grips surprisingly well given that it doesn't pass through anything fixed to the helmet.
However, I've been told by those that know that the power of the water in the Nile is quite incredible compared to what I'm used to. So, on Ronan's advice I'm bringing a sieved helmet that'll spill water when I'm getting washed around.
So I tried mounting the camera on my Pro Tec lid. The drainage holes allow me to strap the mounting bracket on more easily and also to put the camera on the top of my head which makes it better balanced and so I'm less conscious of it being there.I started getting everything ready to pack up and go on Wednesday evening. My paddling gear is nice and dry, the tent is in good nick, and I think I've everything else ready to go. Big Enda is coming to Dublin tomorrow and we'll run through our final checklists, do a panic buy of whatever we've forgotton and then retire to the pub before flying out on Sunday.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Things are coming together
I've got the photo album thing sorted, now all I need is some pictures to put in there. For now I have some pictures of Pauline doing her slalom thing in Bratislava in the slideshow. These pictures were kindly donated by the DCU Canoe Club.
Three weeks ago I ordered a nice helmet camera for the Uganda trip but I found out yesterday morning that the guys I ordered from had none in stock and so it hadn't been shipped to me. so I canceled my order and found a guy in England on eBay who said he could have the same model camera to me in 3 days. It's cutting it tight but hopefully I'll be able to have paddler's eye view footage of some of the runs we'll be hitting in Uganda as well as whatever pictures we take.
Three weeks ago I ordered a nice helmet camera for the Uganda trip but I found out yesterday morning that the guys I ordered from had none in stock and so it hadn't been shipped to me. so I canceled my order and found a guy in England on eBay who said he could have the same model camera to me in 3 days. It's cutting it tight but hopefully I'll be able to have paddler's eye view footage of some of the runs we'll be hitting in Uganda as well as whatever pictures we take.
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