whitewater kayaking

Whitewater Kayaking After 6 Years – a not so cautionary tale

July 20, 2016 By Jillian

Yup. Six years since we’ve been in whitewater kayaks. Let me let that sink in again – six years! The last time we rolled one of these boats was in South Africa, after an interesting day on the river with a local guy who had some extra gear. Anyway, here we are six years, three kids and two states later and once again ready to get back in the saddle…or cockpit?

With our very adventurous cousins (one a former raft guide) getting married in Western North Carolina, it was no surprise that the wedding weekend festivities included whitewater. Being the gentleman that he is Danny volunteered to kayak the river with the groom so he wouldn’t be out there alone. With three kiddos who need at least one parent, I decided to be the responsible one and raft with the larger group instead of kayak. [Note: By responsible I mean, I was totally chicken $H*% about being able to roll still, so I made a graceful exit as I could from the sport.]

So there we were. Me barely listening to the “safety talk” the raft guides gave us and Danny somewhat nervous in the river with the groom attempting a few practice rolls in a whitewater boat for the first time in six years. As he puts it, the first “rapid” he clutched his paddle with more than a little trepidation. Making it through without a single bobble he gained confidence and by the time we hit some more playful water he seemed totally back in the saddle, even dare I say a little adventurous for his first time back in a kayak.

And so rapid after rapid they tackled in their kayaks. At the bottom of each Danny remained upright and with a smile. He and the groom not only seemed to be enjoying themselves, but also playing in the water a bit. Maybe whitewater kayaking is a bit like riding a bike… you never forget your skills.

The first five miles under their belts, Danny and the groom continued downriver as I went to the take out with the other rafters. Admittedly I was a little sad to see them go on, the adventurous part of my spirit still remains, but I was content at leaving well enough alone.

Danny and the groom continued another few miles down the river, aiming to take out right in the town we were staying. And wouldn’t you know it, Danny had to practice his roll on the very last rapid. As they say, a good roll is any roll where you find yourself upright and breathing air… even if you are out of the boat at the time!

In full disclosure, Danny has mentioned several times since the trip that he is not as young as he used to be…. 🙂

4 Bachelor Party ideas for Las Vegas and Beyond

August 7, 2013 By Danny

Typically, most bachelor parties here in the USA involve a lot of booze and often a trip to Las Vegas or Atlantic City. In a few weeks, I’ll be heading out on a bachelor party myself and although some of the other guys wanted to take a traditional Vegas trip and stay at a place like the www.arialasvegas.com, the bride to be was dead set against that option. Several still took the time to research Vegas flights and things to do in Sin City but it was to no avail. Las Vegas can be a great place, but it is only one of the options we have here today.

A Backwoods Adventure.

Nothing quite says manliness and male bonding like a camping trip. Somehow the challenge us urban and suburbanites face when lighting a campfire always makes stories for the ages. Add to that a few rounds of brew and no real stressors and you can have yourself a nice relaxing trip…but that’s not what bachelor parties are all about. Instead, try to take a mountain biking or a white water rafting trip. The nice thing about rafting is that by choosing a rafting company, such as the one we used on my bachelor party, no one needs to have any real skills or gear.

Be A Kid.

With this upcoming bachelor party we chose instead to do something that would be simple and fun. We’re visiting Cedar Point in Ohio where we will ride roller coasters until we’re blue in the face. To add a little bit of manliness to the weekend we’ll also be hitting a baseball game and grilling out for dinner. The really exciting thing is that none of the crew has been to this park before; most have never been to Ohio for that matter.

Travel Abroad

In sticking with the theme of doing something new, why not take that same airplane and turn it in another direction. Recently I went to a Bachelor Party that took place in Puerto Rico, no passport needed and relatively inexpensive airfare still left us in a new country with plenty of options for things to do. Although if you have more money at your disposal, you could follow the British Stag Party tradition and visit Prague instead!

Review: Kayak Pucon (Pucon, Chile)

April 3, 2010 By Danny

We chose to do our Chilean whitewater kayaking with Kayak Pucon for a few reasons, but mostly because it was owned and operated by locals. We actually didn’t know it existed originally and walked into another whitewater shop in Pucon only to be turned off by the rather cold, business-like attitude of the proprietor. Had we not literally stumbled onto Kayak Pucon, we would have skipped kayaking in Pucon all together.

For starters their gear was some of the best we’ve rented in our travels, (we’ve had awful) complete with everything we could want for cold water paddling with the exception of gloves…but we didn’t want those anyhow. We had our choice of boats and aside from our guide we were the only ones on the river. Our guide, the owner, spoke his native Spanish as well as fluent English. We not only chose which river we wanted to run, but also which section and how much time for warm-up we wanted. In short, it was our own, privately tailored trip all for less money than that original gringo wanted to charge us. We had a great time on the river, no incidents to report despite the unusually high water, and hope to kayak with them again someday.

I do really want to stress the quality of the equipment. This was the first time we were in cold water and with were provided with farmer john neoprene wet-suits as well as dry suits. Several times on this trip we’ve kayaked in cold water with none of this made available to us.

Birthday Weekend – South Africa is Awesome

February 15, 2010 By Jillian

It has been quite some time since we’ve lead our normal life…nearly a year now. We used fill our weekends with time on the river or working our way through an adventure or orienteering race, but since traveling that lifestyle has largely been forfeited. This weekend, we got it all in.

Friday was our first time on the river, in whitewater, since Chile. Ecuador was before that which was awful for my confidence as I swam and swam and swam down the river. In Chile we were looking for an easy day to practice some of our skills and instead we got flood stage class IV waves that left us scared and wide-eyed. Friday though we got a nice opportunity to practice at our own pace, get some surfing in, and just enjoy ourselves without worrying about brown spots in our pants….a very nice birthday present indeed.

And of course there was dessert for breakfast on Friday morning as well.

Yesterday though was the rough day. While we were in the Drakensburg mountains a few weeks ago with our CS Johannesburg hosts they suggested that we circle back to JoBurg for the Midmar Dam swim, one mile in open water. Jill was a competitive swimmer in high school but for me it was a big undertaking and it wasn’t until I was enticed with tickets to my first professional rugby game (that was Saturday night, more on that later this week) that I reluctantly agreed.

Today we all attacked that water. Jill swam in the third group of the day, with me following behind in the fourth group. She was finished in 33 minutes, before I ever hit the water. Wading in the distance didn’t look so far but then I started swimming and quickly remembered how slow I am. That first buoy was at a quarter mile and by the time I got there I knew one thing: that I would finish but that it wouldn’t be for a long time. I came in at about an hour and 2 minutes. Since I wasn’t the last one out of the water I had my medal engraved with my name and the words, ‘Not Last!’

And Noah had his flood….

November 3, 2009 By Danny

Moving South from Santiago, we arrived in the Chilean lake district and made ourselves comfortable in the small town of Pucon. Coming here because we´d heard of a day trek up a snow covered volcano, we figured this was a good place to start our journey into Patagonia.

Unfortunately, the volcano was not meant to be. For what wasn’t the first and surely won’t be the last, the weather wasn’t going to cooperate with us. When we arrived in town we were told that it would be at least 3 days until we could go and do the volcano on account of the weather. And by weather they meant “rain”, heavy, continuous rain.

With our chances of hiking the volcano slipping away with every subsequent rain drop, we made the best of the town and headed out to do some mountain biking. A day of mountain biking on some rather nice, well tuned bikes…the first time we´ve had that combination on this trip, and we were back to our usual selves. Despite getting caught in the rain, biking through the hills on the gravel roads was a real treat after so long on a bus. We did a 35km loop around the surrounding country, including a set of waterfalls called Ojos de Aguas. Usually small waterfalls, the turbulent and swift moving water was anything but reassuring for our next activity, some whitewater kayaking.

I know what you’re thinking. Usually when we write a whitewater kayaking post it details a story that makes our mothers cringe. Have no fear mom, this story has a very happy ending.
Not since my terrible time in Ecuador several months ago have I been back in a boat. Those memories were still quite ummm.. prominent as were Jill´s of her rough times in Mexico. The warning from the outfitter…”we´ve had a lot of rain so the river is quite high” had us nervous, but she assured us the river was still Class III which was important to us as we were looking to regain some lost confidence. We regained some confidence alright, but the river was not at Class III.

The recent rains had put the river into flood stage. We spent the first half of the two hour trip floating down fast moving, flat water…just taking the time to adjust to the boats and get comfortable. As we approached the first of the rapids though, it was clear that this was not going to be the easy day we were expecting.

Relating our trip rapid by rapid would be impossible. Literally. The water was moving so fast that there were no breaks between the rapids so really it was all just one giant 7k rapid. We had expected the whitewater portion to take 45 minutes to an hour. I think in the end it took less than half that but it felt like even less still. At one point Jill spun her kayak around upstream (or was that by accident) and her wide-eyed “oh my god” face told it all. Crashing through the ice cold waves (this is glacier melt people!), we didn’t have a second of relief until we were on dry land. Scared the entire time we made it through without so much as a tip over. Neither of us needed to use our roll and this was by far the biggest water we´d ever been in. As we pulled the boats out of the water, our guide asked us if we had fun. “Yes,” Jill replied. “But I don’t want to do it again!”

I’m not actually sure if it was a stroke of luck or actual improvement of our skills, but we took it for what it was…a successful day on the river.