In under-two months time Katya and myself will be heading to the Whitewater Grand Prix in Canada. An all around event that will feature 3 Creeking competitions and 3 Freestyle to crown the ultimate all around Whitewater Champion on some of the biggest whitewater and waves in the world.
To prepare for this we travelled to the Galicia region of Spain/ Portugal and so far have been spending time honing our wave skills on the Dam wave in Frieira and in the Ocean Surf that I wrote about in my last update.
This last week we set about getting the feel of being in creekboats again as we joined up with Aniol Serrasolses from Spain and a bunch of super friendly Portugese Kayakers who’ve been showing us around some beautiful rivers in the area.
The rivers we ran down were the Alto Tea, Cascada de Umia, Rio Bec/ Tameda, some really low Rocky ditch & the Rio Castro Laboreiro.
The rivers for me were all incredibly beautiful with a very wild setting and super clean clear water. I really enjoyed the beauty of the areas we past through! In my boat I felt very rusty at first going from a 7kg carbon playboat to a 17kg plastic river boat is a bit of a shock at first but the boats (Mamba & Axiom) handled great once we got the feel for them.
The Mamba was just so forgiving and easy to paddle, it feels like it just always goes the best possible route through a rapid even when you miss your stroke or something and the Axiom is just so versatile, I used it in big surf last week and it was a blast and then on some technical creeks and big water runs here and it handled perfectly and is incredibly fast. Its going to be hard to choose which to use for Canada…
I’ll let the photos do most of the talking but the highlight for me was definitely the big Slide “Cascada de Umia”. Aniol had shown us some photos on the internet, and mentioned it had probabl never been ran. It looked very spectacular so on the second day myself, Katya and Aniol drove to check it out on our way down south to Portugal.
We arrived to find it had some water in it and looked just as it did in the photos. It had a few sketchy bits on it that I was a bit unsure about it but Aniol seemed confidant on his line so he walked up to the top and nailed a perfect, smooth line down the whole drop and slide to take the First Descent (as far as we know anyway).
Having seen Aniol style it I decided on my line and went for it! It went better than I imagined and it was such a great feeling coming through the spray on the kicker into the pool below! Really sick slide in an awesome setting.
One of the other really spectacular rivers we did was the Portugese classic the Rio Castro Laboreiro. We decided to run down the upper and middle section back to back. The upper section had some really great rapids, drops and slides and the lower 3 fantastic waterfalls (6m, 10m & 12m) and one giant portage. The day was a bit of an adventure with some big beatings and a couple swims, 2 split kayaks, one drowned camera, and an epic portage that meant a very late finish to the day.
All in all it was a fantastic weeks paddling, with some really great friendly kayakers that took us down some brilliant rivers that we’d have never found without them. So a big thank you to Aniol Serrasolses, Emilio, Pablo, Ramico, Joao, Luis, Antonio and the whole Portugese crew who offered us great hospitality and a really enjoyable week!
Check out the Photos & Flickr Slide show below to get a better look at our adventures.
Hot of the press from the Fisher brothers, http://www.fishmunga.com/ , is the trailer for ‘Halo Effect’, a film documenting our expeditions into Iceland and Northern Norway last year.
‘Halo Effect’ has already taken out best adventure film at the prestigious X-Dance Film Festival in Utah as well as the best film at the Reel Life Film Festival.
For you UK based paddlers, the UK premier will be at the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival, 4th- 6th March. http://www.shaff.co.uk/
We left the UK two weeks ago to head out on our European migration and after a leisurely 5 day drive we arrived in Frieira next to the Rio Mino on the Spain/ Portugal border.
So far we’ve been spending most of our time at the wave below the Dam in Frieira.
It works best in the morning and ussualy drops off in the afternoon although the dam releases have been a little unpredictable so far.
The wave at the right level is probably one of the best in Europe, and a reasonable hole at lower flows. The only downsides is that you need to catch it from above which means after each ride is a tough walk back up over jagged rocks and through thorny gorse bushes to get back in, but luckily the wave really makes up for the hard walk back to the top.
The area of Galicia we’ve been in so far has been pretty warm with beautiful lush scenary all around us, a really great place to kayak.
This weekend just gone we drove to the Portugese coast to head out in our brand new as yet un-used Axiom in some very violent hefty storm surf. The boat handled great in the rough conditions and I had a very short session getting battered around before it got too big and I retreated back to the beach.
Check the photo gallery below to see more of what we’ve been upto…
Hey all, I managed to escape for the day on Sunday for a quick mission to the beautiful Mellte in South Wales. The river was at a really fun level, and as well as the usual fun lines, we went for a scouting mission nearby.
The spectacular put on for the Mellte – Pic from Tom Layland
Finn Burrows and myself scouting a huck. My Stikine suit is now 3 years old and still going. Top piece of kit. – From Tom L
Here are a couple of video stills for the day, we started filming for a short movie project I’m working on, so watch this space.
Filming by the ever talented, though currently injured Finn ‘Magic Ankle’ Burrows.
Thanks to Tom Layland and Finn B for a most excellent day out.
Spring’s not far off now, keep it wholesome, and pray for rain.
Great news for Palm Equipment who have signed freestyle guru James ‘Pringle’ Bebbington to represent Palm for freestyle and extreme racing. Arguably the UK’s leading freestyle talent, Pringle will join the exclusive roster of paddlers at the bleeding edge of paddlesports who represent Palm.
“Top playboaters have always chosen our gear, right back to the very first Rodeo World Championships and throguh the days of the legendary River Tec Collective – innovative paddlers who like having fun. Pringle has this combination, mixing world-class ability with everyday enthusiasm for the sport.” Team Manager, Paul Robertson
Competing widely across Europe and the US this summer and reporting back with his event diaries, you can follow Pringle’s season here or over on the Palm Equipment Facebook page.
A couple of weeks ago I met up with Hugh ‘huge’ Graham in Exeter for a weekend of boating… a weekend of boating that turned in to one morning of boating.
Unfortunately, for the last three and a bit weeks I’ve been off kayaking and on painkillers, due to said morning’s boating with friends, in South Wales. After setting off from Exeter bright and early (6am to be precise) on a Saturday morning, we were aiming for the river Mellte – rain the night before had continued in to the morning, giving us ample water for the days adventure ahead.
It turned out to be so much rain that just about every high water run in Wales was browner than… well, browner than they normally are, giving us quite a few options. So standing at the take out for the Nedd Fechan, looking down at a pretty high level, some crazy cat suggested we went to have a look at the Giedd, one of the Tawe’s tributaries.
A short drive and couple of kilometres hike in later we were rewarded – the Giedd is great.
Well I managed to ruin my ankles on the last drop, unfortunate, but hey… it happens.
Thanks to Mark Shackleton for taking us up there, nice one!
And now, after my long stretch off kayaking, I’m heading back to Wales to meet up with Nick ‘Niche’ Horwood – fire it up!
Early season paddle at North stack. A 9m tide and a Northerly wind .It was big enough to stop us getting the eddy and having to change our plans and go all the way to Port Dafarch.
