The Pros Swim the Novice Run

15 Feb 2015 - Low Water

The Novices Fared Much Better!

Jan and Ryan decided to take 3 novices, Chantal, Jess and Brett, on a brief course down the Novice section. After the usual intro and basic skills they set off and had a chilled session, all the way to 3 sisters.  Ryan was in full "Steven Spielberg" mode with his Go-Pro, and decided to park in the eddy halfway down the rapid.

Actually it's more of a boil than an eddy, which saw him being undone and ended in a swim.  Not much further along, still in "Spielberg" mode, Ryn dropped into the hole halfway down "The Island" rapid, which ended in another swim.

Our all-conquering instructor Jan, while attempting to rescue Ryan's boat, got himself sucked into a small whirlpool and pinned against a rock.....  

Novice section 3, Pros 0.

After a quick lunch the group set off to run the top half of the gorge.  All went well, with the odd novice swimming, and only just avoiding the last hole. Then all hell broke loose while keeping them away from "The Black Syphon" - it seemed as if all wanted to go into it...  Brett almost swam Quadratic - in fact it is not possible to come closer to the drop-in without actually swimming it. Jess had to be hauled past the syphon, and then Chantal did an unsupervised ferry just above Quadratic, which almost ended in tears.