Kayak4Ever

Tim and I had to take last weekend off from paddling because he was on call for work and we had many home projects that needed attention. But yesterday we were free to head to the river, so we loaded everything up to head to the Ocoee in Tennessee. It’s great that the Ocoee is only a 2-hour drive from Atlanta!

We met our friend Marshall at that the McDonalds on Windy Hill so the three of us could carpool. There was a rainbow of Dagger Nomads on top of our car — Tim and Marshall both have the big Nomads (yellow and red, respectively) and my short Nomad is green. Marshall brought his big boat because he wanted a calm run (minimal playing) after a late night at a friend’s birthday party. Tim wants time in his creek boat because he has his eyes on possibly running the Green later this fall. And of course I’m in my big boat because it’s my main boat.

So this time when we got to the river, I didn’t feel nervous. I was happy to be there. We ran into some more friends at the put in…Mark and Martina, McGee, and Natalie. Mark N. from Ellijay also arrived up as we were suiting up.

I picked up my boat and started the walk down to the 2nd put-in below Grumpies. This time I looked at that first rapid and thought the out-of-the-gate ferry looked doable. I’m going to run Grumpies pretty soon — probably in a late afternoon when there’s not so much raft traffic.

Each time I go to the Ocoee I try something new. This time I decided to run a new line at Broken Nose. I have been going far left to take the creeky slide. This time I asked Martina to show me the middle line — what most people call the sneak line. She showed me the big rock, that’s located kind of center right, where you cut left above the rock and then turn downstream to navigate through some bouncy water where you bypass the ledges in the main line (the main line is to the right).
The middle line was good to go

Now that I knew a fun new line at Broken Nose, I said I also wanted to take the main line at Slice and Dice! (usually I run straight down the left). So, Martina described the line to me and we headed on down.

In Slice and Dice there are several holes to navigate and on the main line you basically thread through the holes — starting on the left and first driving left to right between an upper and lower hole. Then reaching a relatively calm patch of water in the middle of the river before angling back toward river left to punch a final set of holes.

Granted there are plenty of routes that experienced boaters can take through the rapids, I’m just describing what many folks call the main line at Slice and Dice.

So the cool news is I had a great combat roll after the top pair of holes (I clipped the edge of the lower hole and flipped).

The other excitement was I scraped my jaw on a rock underwater. Aack! I didn’t commit to paddling through the lower holes and I flipped again at the hole where long boats sometimes play doing enders. Crap. I rushed my first roll, went back over in a not great position leaning toward my back deck, did not get tucked soon enough and scraped my right jaw on a rock. Ugh.

I admit, after bumping my jaw on the river bottom, my brain didn’t want to try another roll. Yep, I punched out and swam. I wish I’d held out to just set up to try another roll…since basically I’d reached the pool at that point…and I later learned Tim was right there to hand-of-god my boat and me. But I didn’t hang out. I bailed. The learning curve continues. Next time…

P.S. I came up smiling from the swim. No major carnage from the jaw scrape. Thankfully just a little rasberry mark that looks like road rash like you get if you fall off your bike.

P.P.S. While I was swimming to the eddy, somebody asked me if I hit something while I was underwater. I said, “Yeah, I hit a rock.” He said, “I thought so, I saw your boat bounce.” Glad to provide some entertainment for the folks in the eddies.

Oh! and one more thing about Flipper…

At Flipper Tim and I ran into Heidi who we originally met when we all lived in Ohio. Now Heidi also lives in the south. She was paddling with Ryan and Sarah. Tim was ahead of me in this rapid. He went down into the river left eddy below the drop at Flipper. I was in the eddy above the drop waiting my turn and making sure the way was clear of rafts.

Usually Tim will go first at Flipper and then use his paddle to point to where I want to line up for the boof. This time Tim didn’t point out the line. He figured I knew what I was doing here. That was cool!

I peeled out of the eddy, looked for my line at the ledge, and took a good stroke over the lip to drop down flat into the eddy. Sarah and Heidi
said my boof looked good. That was the nicest thing to hear right there because I used to be kind of freaked about Flipper.

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In my last post I talked about how one of my
strategies to work through nerves at the put-in is to tell myself I can paddle any section of the river I want, even if it means taking out after the first rapid.

For me, on the Ocoee, this means giving myself permission to paddle from my put in (river right eddy below Grumpies) down to Staging Eddy. And if I want to take out there, that’s perfectly okay. At least I’d get past my anxiety about even putting on the river.

All along I know this is a simple mental trick. I know I can paddle easily to Staging Eddy. And I know that by the time we get to Staging Eddy, I’ll be having fun. At that point I’ve already paddled through some good waves, caught some eddies, navigated a few small holes…and I’m starting to “feel” it.

Our habit at Staging Eddy is to hang out for a while practicing ferries, rolling in current, and I bounce into the bottom wave sideways a few times to try to catch myself off guard. From there, I tell myself I can take out at different points ahead if I feel like it…but with each trip I know it’s less likely that I’ll take off early. I haven’t yet this season!

Yesterday at Staging Eddy I had a little extra fun. I got too close to a shredder, paused in my paddling to open some distance between us, and found myself being side surfed in that little bottom wave until it flipped me. I rolled up and thought, “Hey, good to get some of that action out of the way early…remember to leave more space open around shredders and rafts!”

Highlights of yesterday’s fun on the Ocoee were:

1. Eddy hopping between Broken Nose and Slice and Dice — playing follow the leader with Tim.

2. Running the boof line at Double Suck for the first time (Clean! Thanks for suggesting that line, Jody! And thanks, Tim, for understanding about me not being ready to go that way until yesterday.)

3. Watching Tim help rescue a raft that was stuck in bottom hole at Double Suck. Small self-guided raft started with three people and three paddles….when we arrived, there was one person in the raft with no paddle…she was just bouncing and spinning there in place with no way out of the hole. The two other rafters were in the water also without their paddles in their own stages of rescue. To help the raft stuck in the hole, Tim paddled from the river right eddy to up near the hole, got out of his boat near a rock and threw his rope to the girl in the raft. She grabbed the rope. About that same time a guided raft came down and bumped her out of the hole. She held onto Tim’s rope and he swung her and her raft to the right bank. She had a bloody lip from where one of the other rafters hit her with his paddle’s t-grip. That whole raft crew took off the river there.

4. Leading through Hell’s Half Mile and catching eddies through that stretch. Eddying out above Double Trouble and peeling out to take my own line through the big waves (fun! - and OcoeePhotos.com FINALLY took pictures of me…good thing I waved like a maniac to the photographers before I headed through the rapid!…you’ll find me among private boaters 7.27.08, if you set the screen to one photo per page I’m pages 537-544 online through 8.10.08, I’m in a green Dagger creek boat wearing blue sweet helmet and light blue shorty).

5. catching LOTS of eddies between Double Trouble and Flipper.

6. Boofing at Flipper.

7. Clean run at Table Saw, eddying out on the left, and then ferrying out high to cross the big run out with a smooth, solid move over to river right - yay! I was really proud of that ferry ’cause I kept good speed and angle.

8. Trying a boof move below Gerbil Stuffer. Gerbil Stuffer is a surf place on the left between Diamond Splitter and the lead in to Western Flyer. There’s a big flat rock at Gerbil Stuffer, and just below it is the place where you can either boof over this little ledge (maybe 4 feet) or ferry above the ledge toward river right to head into Western Flyer. Tim and Jody kept good speed going for the boof. I didn’t…turned sideways at the lip and went over backwards…flipped… rolled…and laughed all the way through Western Flyer

9. Working on a ferry-attainment move at the bottom of Cats Pajamas. On the right, there is a final decent wave that you can drop down and carve into an eddy. From the eddy, you ferry out high to surf that same wave toward river left, across the main run out, to head for the river left eddy below the rock where squirt boaters do mystery moves. The left eddy is super boily and pulls you up to beside that mystery move rock. From there, you ferry out strong to attain back to the right, heading for an eddy ABOVE that final wave on river right. Tim and Jody both made the attainment eddy several times. I almost made it once, but didn’t commit and wound up back in the lower right eddy below that final wave. On my next tries, I just focused on good ferry form through the pushy water.

It was an awesome day!

P.S. My comfort zone through Broken Nose has been running the far left creek line (pics below). Next week I’m going for another line!

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Yesterday was the second weekend in a row I’ve paddled the Ocoee. That makes seven times I’ve paddled it this year. Every time Tim and I go, I’m happy to be headed to the river, but every time we’re about 15 miles from the put in I start feeling anxious.

Then we stop at the Whitewater Center to use the indoor bathrooms and I still feel anxious.

Then when we pull into the parking lot - at the top of the middle section to unload our gear - and I feel like I don’t want to paddle at all. I tell Tim I don’t feel well or maybe I’ll just hang out for the day.

This has developed into a pattern since I started whitewater boating. From the first riffles I saw on the Big Darby in Ohio, I thought…ummm…maybe I’ll walk around this…

When I went to the Lower Yough for the first time I felt the same way. I walked off to the side of the parking lot by myself and had a little cry. Crying seemed appropriate at the Yough compared to just having butterflies at the Big Darby!

The first few times I ran the Ocoee this season, I was beyond crying…I felt like I was going to throw up.

The good thing about all of this is that Tim and I are getting a handle on this drill. When I say I don’t feel like putting on (this is when we’re pulling into the put-in parking lot), Tim says, “Do you really not feel well, or are you nervous? It’s okay to be nervous.”

I say, “I’m not scared, I just don’t want to paddle.” At this point Tim and I both know I’ll be fine as soon as I’m in my boat on the water. He tells me, “Why don’t you take Charley (our dog) for a little walk and I’ll get our gear together?”

So I take Charley for a walk. When I get back to the car, Tim has all of my gear unloaded and tucked in my boat waiting for me. He’s ready to run shuttle while I wait with our gear at the put in. Usually this is when we run into some friends and we all decide to paddle together. This is also where I start to relax because I’m committed now to actually getting in my boat. I know the car is gone – with Tim driving it to the take out - so I don’t have anywhere to put my boat and gear even if I wanted to back out of running the river.

I start telling myself all I have to do is paddle down to Staging Eddy - and if I want to take out there I can.

Yesterday at the put in we saw our friend Jody and her friend Bill. I am always happy to see Jody. She’s a really good boater and she and Tim have paddled harder stuff together a bunch this past winter and spring.

When I took a lesson on the Ocoee in May with Jeff West, Jody and Tim were hiding at the bottom of Table Saw to watch my run (they didn’t want me to see them in case it made me nervous to have an audience). That was my first time to run Table Saw and I was already nervous without knowing Tim was watching. I cleaned it, though, and when I got to the river left eddy at the bottom I asked Jeff if it would offend him if I cursed. He said, No, it wouldn’t…so I screamed, “Fuckin’ A!” and then, “My husband is going to be so proud of me!” That’s when Tim and Jody jumped up from behind their rock and cheered for me. That was awesome!

So, yesterday, it was really nice to get to paddle the whole river with Jody. And have such a good day on the river with Tim.

I love kayaking – even though I still feel a little freaked out at the put in.

Giving my Nomad some love after a clean run at Table Saw.

Watching for rafts.

All clear - time to peel out to head down through Diamond Splitter.

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USAWildwater is bringing a training camp to Atlanta January 26-27 and I’m going to be there…on the river…in a WAVEHOPPER!!!

The first time I saw a wavehopper was two years ago at the Lower Yough in Pennsylvania watching the upstream race that was part of the Falls Race weekend. I stood on a big flat rock in the middle of Entrance rapid and watched these crazy paddlers in crazy looking long boats race down the rapid and then turn around and keep racing back to the put in. I was awestruck. Now every time I see someone out practicing in a wavehopper I think it’s just about the neatest thing I’ve seen on the river.

The clinic is less than a month away. I’ll be sure to post a follow-up.

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