My First Grade 2 - The Mohaka

Saturday was not looking like a great day for kayaking, or being outside in general, and the North Island was receiving the biggest storm in 10 years with gale force wind warnings all over the north island. Naturally I was a tad apprehensive about stepping foot onto my first grade 2 proper river, but we were reassured that the river gorge should prevent high winds from affecting us. And it mostly turned out that way.
The other good news, was that after all the rain, the river was flowing at a good level, the best all this winter, so promised some god honest white water action. And it delivered.

Below is the photo of the waterfalls, which is where we launced in from, at the base of the Mountain Valley Adventure Lodge and set off for a 4 hour amble down the river.


The main purpose of today was to get used to running some grade 2 rapids, and to learn how to read the river and pick the best line to run rapids. We also managed some sight seeing and found the highest rail viaduct in Austrailasia standing at 95meters.




Things got a bit more interesting after the 30minutes of warming up, and we started to learn about holes, buffer cliffs (nasty), upstream V's (bad), downstream V's (good), wave trains, undercuts (very bad) and my favourites: splash walls (killers). Wave trains are without a doubt the most fun, and a bumpy ride down a wave train is bound to get the heart racing for the first time. Of course we were here to learn how to maximise our downriver speed, and not have fun (although we were ordered to smile), so the guide was telling us that the best line was to go down just on the outside (or inside) of the train and try to avoid the big lumpy stuff. Easier said than done.
When it came to downstream V's, we were supposed to think of them as X's and enter the V on the left, and cross over at the intersection, and head out the right (opposite) side. Again, easier said than done.


Above we have a photo of the Mohaka, on fairly low flow, and you can see how the cliffs just slice into the river, and potentially imagine being pushed into the side of the cliff and having water come over the top of you. That would be a bluff (bad), and although not good you can actually learn INTO the cliff and push off with your hands (or paddle) and shimmy you way down. Thankfully I avoided this, but it took a bit of getting used to paddling within a meter or two of immanent danger, but realising that you were OK to do so.

In fact that seemed and recurring theme in all of kayaking, that the correct line was only a knife edge away from immanent danger.

This next photos was of one of the gnarliest rapids. Again, the flow was quite a bit higher than this (borrowed) photo. You can see a rapid (about 1/2 way through the photo) which requires approaching from "river right" then crossing the intersection (the "X") and coming out on "river left", then we have a 20m gap till we again need to be on "river left" and come around the bend, but remembering to put the power on, so that that we can take a sharp right, and "eddy out" on "river right" (which is actually the stony bank on the bottom left of this photo).

Which reminds me of some terminology - "River right" means, the right hand side if you were going DOWNstream (usually you are). Even if you were going backwards, River Right does not change.


So, I actually had a great day, and managed to stay upright (not dry tho) all day and really enjoyed my first grade 2 run.


Here is the map of the route we took, some 11km.

Grade II Mohaka - 11km

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Sausage Rolls

Today was a small step for kayakers but a giant leap for bens kayaking career.
After taking 2 sessions with russel on Eskimo rolling in the last 2 weeks, this week he was running a differnt course, but invited me to come along and practise on my own. I had left the last session with being able to comfortably right my kayak from being held at 135degree angle (mostly upside down) under the water, but totally incapable of righting it from 180 degrees (totally upside down). Most of it stemmed from not being able to get the paddle into the right position at the top of the water, and culminated into me swallowing a lot of water and thrashing my arms pointlessly.

But today was a different story. I made a significant attempt to lean as far forward as possible and watched another guy complete a roll almost effortlessly. His technique was to setup, then lift his whole paddle and arms from the water, and then rotate these exactly 90degrees. After planting the blade, it seemed like the boat just righted itself. So therein lies the lesson: Get the blade at a 90degree angle from the boat, at the surface of the water, and the rest is inevitable.

So I had a go at this, with the guy at arms length and it worked. Although I thought that he helped me so I asked him if he did, and he said that he didnt help me, but I didnt believe him. So I kindly asked him to step away, for me to have another go. I think I may have offended him slightly, but said that I just didnt believe I was doing it myself, and had to know for sure. So I tried the roll myself, and hey presto. I was up quicker than a old man on viagra.

Amazingly I tried 25 more rolls and nailed every one of them. Not even any double attempts. 1 or 2 where I had to make doubly sure the blade was on the surface, but as soon as that was confirmed it seemed almost inevitable the kayak would right itself.

Bombproof.

At least that was the goal of my going on this course, was to gain general kayaking confidence, and make my eskimo roll bombproof.

As the session went on, I started shifting my hand towards to central position, and got them to the paddling position almost right away. Then I tried to capsize whilst moving and that worked just fine. Then tried to capsize on the opposite side (left) to the righting side (right), and that that worked great aswell.

Fantastic!

I'm now not sure what I'll do in the remaining 2 sessions I've paid for learning to roll, as it seems like I may have got the gist of it, and now just need to work on the finess and fine tuning.

Wicked. I love learning things and its been great for kayaking confidence to get this working.


PS: This post had nothing to do with sausages.

My JKK Eclipse Kayak

After trying out many kayaks in the beginner/intermediate/co-ordinated beginner I finally decided on the Eclipse 5.7m. Coming from no kayaking background I found the choice almost impossible. Every single multisporter/reseller/guide/friend/manufacturer said something different about what kayak to get and why. But to make matters worse, there was a lot of totally conflicting opinions on different boats, and a great deal of misinformation about the differences. Some said the JKK was going to bust at the seams, some said it was the strongest boat out there. People said buy a tippy boat that you feel unsafe in now, because you will get better over time. Others said buy a safe option, bacause its only your first boat and you want a dry run down the Waimakariri. Then there was cost, availibility, resale value, kevlar or fibreglass, ocean/surfski vs multisport, bulkheads or not, center crossbar steering or outside seperate steering, primary and secondary stability, shallow water or deep water hulls. The list goes on.
I got so confused, I had to go back to basics. I rememember when I bought my first triathlon bike, and I ended up buying it because it came in black, and I felt like it would go fast.
I applied the same logic and went with a gut feeling. I like the green JKK's and they felt like I could go fast given some training.
What made it hard was that I got offered a really good deal on my second choice, the Ruahine Intrigue, but decided to go with my instincts and spend more money (a whole chunk more!) and get the one that felt like the better decision. Time will tell if it was the right decision.

So here it is...


See JKK Racing for details.

Competitor #95

I have always wanted to do the Coast to Coast, well before I got involved in Ironman.

Why?
1) The challenge -> 243km of Run/Bike/Kayak is a very long day
2) Its an iconic New Zealand event, famous worldwide, and as a kiwi I want to have done it in my lifetime.
3) As far as I'm concerned it has the most beautiful scenery of any race in the world, and it embodies all that the New Zealand Outdoor lifestyle is all about.

Why now?
1) I'm sick of people telling me about it. It's time to do it. Then tell everybody else :-)
2) After getting Ironman fit, I have mostly taken care of the running/cycling, just need the challenge of paddling for 6 hours.
3) Financially I'm in a position to do so.
4) This opportunity might not come along (easily) again, so just do it!


Why one-day and not two-day or teams?
1) Its called "coast to coast", not "coast to inland, then handover to someone else"
2) The two day option is still the same distance. So why bother sleeping in between. Just keep going.
3) People would only say, why didn't you do the one day? Arggg.


So as they say in poker. I'm all in.

Competitor #95 (2009)