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The river calls..
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008Went up to Hønefoss for some playing in the rapids again yesterday evening. I was cold when I left work, so Hans lent me his dry suit top, which is good at keeping you dry and warm so long as you don’t capsize and go for a swim. Of course, I spent most of time swimming rather than kayaking. Still, the wrist seals worked so well that it took me 10 minutes to get my hands out of the suit afterward (i thought things were supposed to get smaller in cold water.. my hands decided to swell instead).
My brain remembered everything from the course we did a month or so back - right up to the point when we got into the current. Got swept sideways over the rapids at one stage, and to my amazement managed to stay upright, although this was the only time during the evening I managed to do so. My rubbishness I think was was a combination of me being physically knackered, as well as (understandably) crap technique - miracles shouldn’t be expected when this is only the third time we’ve been kayaking (ignoring for a moment our little adventure in New Zealand, and of course the two years we spent learning to kayak in school [it was almost 20 years ago - it doesn't count! And anyway, you really can't compare Symonds Yat with the kind of rivers they have here] ).
The one suprise for the evening was that I was toasty warm the whole time we were on the river. So much so that I have lost my fear of cold water and now want to get myself a dry suit and start diving regularly as well. And despite the kayaking to swimming ratio still being a bit one sided (for me at least - Ollie was much more in control), we enjoyed it so much that we have booked ourselves on a trip to a river a few hours drive away for the weekend 
