Well, Chas bought 5 lots of upper Dart tickets for the 2002/03 season & only managed to paddle once, due to either lack of water or not having enough experienced paddlers to take the less experienced safely onto the loop. Next year we will have to split the upper & loop trips to separate weekends.

This trip was organised at the last minute with very few takers, just Pete, Chas & Mark making it down to Devon.

Water levels were medium and all in all they had a good day. Chas took a rather relaxed approach, which was commented on by the other paddlers, especially when he couldn’t be bothered to high brace after a drop & chose to just roll, banging his head quite hard on a hidden underwater bolder. He did take a few minutes to recover, then complained that his boat was too big, now that he was about 50cm shorter than he was when he started.

A great cream tea was had in Ashburton on the way home, which topped off a great day (need to remember this for future trips).

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As in November, a group of coaches and paddlers from SCC took 7 Sea Scouts from Barton-on-Sea on a weekend trip to the river Dart. All bar one of the scouts had made the previous November trip so were pretty well conscious of the rapids and their locations, with no injuries and a couple of wild water rolls they all did very well. Being adventurous on the Sunday, we allowed them to run the infamous seal launch, which they all enjoyed, even the one who landed sideways & then did a superb roll to recover.

Many thanks to the coaches and paddlers who supported both these events. Who knows, many of these youngsters could be the future coaches who look after us in our old age.

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Along with Claire, there was Ken, Ian, Dan, Sue, Paul & Andy, who set off from Eastoke at 10.am as planned.

It was a sunny day with good visibility. The weather was very cold & still, with no wind to speak of. There was a small amount of swell and very little surf on the beach.

With hardly any boat traffic they sneaked inside the surf breaking over the sandbar, prior to entering the harbour. Claire said that when going through the channel to enter the harbour, they should have picked a point (a buoy) and aimed for it and should have stuck together more. A better plan was needed, as not all members of the group seemed to know where they were aiming for.

They reached 6.3 knots going through the channel !!!!!!! and there were no swimmers on the trip, although Paul & Dan looked a bit wobbly when catching a wave for the final landing at the end.

The total distance paddled was 12.9 NM. Seems everyone fully enjoyed the paddle and overall (with the good weather) it was a success.

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A group of us met up at the Dart country park for what we hoped would be a fun weekend.

We soon got on to the water and most of the group had a play at the get on point. Sonia sat in the eddy for a while so that she could get a feel for the water. She was feeling very apprehensive as usual but more so this time as she didn’t have Rob there with her, due to a slipped disc. Every body, Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Before long we set off. Stopping to have a play at all of the features. Sonia didn’t play ‘cos she didn’t want to swim.

We approached lovers. Sonia followed Pete very closely throughout and got herself over to the beach & sat quietly letting her heart rate slow down & breath properly. She turned around, only to discover that Sue had got fed up paddling about a third of the way through and fancied swimming the rest of the way, Brrrrrr!!!!!!!. Dave came down after managing to negotiate it until the end and he also felt like a swim. Once Sue and Dave had been retrieved from the water & warmed up a bit we set off again. We were all enjoying ourselves.

We can’t remember where but Dave had another incident where he managed to do a really good roll.

When we got to the washing machine, some IDIOT got in Dave’s way causing him to go for yet another swim. Bad luck Dave, it wasn’t to be your day.

Have you noticed that Sonia has not yet had a swim, it’s true.

Tom & Chris were really enjoying themselves, it was their first White Water trip, Dan was acting as backup man and a great job he was doing of it.

Dan really went for it when he was playing, not going around the boulders he likes to go head on to them and fly off the top, nutter.

The end of the first day’s paddle arrived and we all got cleaned up and went for a meal in the bar. It wasn’t too long before Sue and Sonia were ready to hit the sack.

After a good nights sleep we got up & went for breakie then ready to hit the water again.

Dave decided that he wanted to go for a walk instead, so we set off without him. We all had a good paddle without incident that is until we got to the spin dryer, we all went through okay. Sue and Sonia got out and stretched there legs for a while, whilst the men had their play. We got back in our boats, and with a shout of "get behind me Son" from Pete, we set off again. The thing is Pete soon forgot that Sonia would keep close behind him and forgot she was there. He saw a big boulder and decided he would go and play with it. Sonia tried to avoid him but lost her balance and over she went. Her first and only swim of the weekend with many THANKS TO PETE.

We reached the get out point without further ‘accidents’. Got dressed and went to the room, packed up then went for a drink and food before setting off home. It was a fantastic weekend. Thanks Pete for looking after us and Dan for being the backup man. They really gave Sonia confidence, knowing they were behind her if she needed them, and she can’t wait for next winter.

Sonia apologies if she got things that happened in the wrong order as she is not too sure which river features come where.

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Chas organised a day trip to HPP, as a warm up for the French Alp’s trip. However, Rich was the only taker. The weather was pretty chilly with a Northerly wind running right down through the course.

Chas got Rich to practice side surfing the stoppers which he did enjoy until he found that the only way out was to stick his nose into the pour over, pray & then roll up down stream.

It was pretty quiet with only about 20 or so paddlers on the course, Chas and Rich had most of the surf waves and the Muncher all to themselves. Only getting off once tiredness had taken over & made rolling too much effort.

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Another trip organised by Chas as another timid warm up for the French Alp’s trip with just two other takers in Andy & Rich. With their London based friends deciding that Hurley would be a better choice – but surely it would be too crowded (and only on 2 gates – pants).

Well they made an 11.15 start (bit late for Chas), had a McD for lunch & still got to the Nene at 13.30 for the opening.

The course has been much improved since last year, with more surf waves, better pour-overs, but the crowds of paddlers made it unbearable. At one point both Chas and Rich decided to splat the wall of the bottom concrete island at the same time, with Rich going upside down first followed by Chas - whose boat landed on top of Rich. Needless to say, Rich did break free but swam on a strong eddyline, blaming Chas. Seems we need a new swimming ticket, as Rich would not accept Chas’s Zambezi one.

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Graham from Ringwood CC said that after all the repairs, Woodmill Weir is open again, yippee !!!.

Chas, Rich, Dan and Pete went along on Sunday afternoon to find that the weir had been changed yet again making it far more like it used to be a few years ago,(but technically safer of course).

It now forms a decent stopper over it’s entire length with a retaining hole middle right for all you playboaters, now having fairly strong re-circulating eddies on both sides which will push/pull you into the weir – especially if you go upside down anywhere but in the hole. Chas spent a bit of time inspecting the bottom/sides whilst stuck inverted in the right hand side.

It also no longer flushes straight down stream but pushes you into the left hand wall, so if your inverted, and don’t make the first two rolls you get pushed into the wall, which is okay for lefties – but righties tend to get stuck or even swim. No names, but Rich will another swimming ticket need to be produced.

In Chas’s opinion, it’s no longer as good a practice place for beginners except to get plenty of rolling & swimming practice, however, pretty good for WW improvers.

A timetable for Woodmill Weir will be placed on our website very soon.

www.southbourne-canoe-club.org.uk

Well, the story here is that Chas felt the need to tone up his fitness levels prior to the end of May Alp’s W.W. trip. Pete suggested that a 16 mile sea paddle from Lymington to the I.O.W. through the needles and back again would help. With the lack of rain and ride-able surf Chas reluctantly agreed to this expedition, bearing in mind that he had always to this point refused to paddle anything flat or slow moving.

Well, Pete, Sue, Chas, Simon and Paul, set off from Lymington at 10:45 paddling out to the Island, in a light high level mist they crossed to Fort Albert and then paddled along the I.O.W. coast to the needles.

On the crossing Chas and Sue were approached by a fast moving trawler, Sue decided to stop and let it pass. Chas decided that he could paddle fast enough to pass before it arrived, not realizing just how hard he had to paddle, with the trawler missing him by less than 50M (Chas said the strong smell the other paddlers noticed was coming from the trawler - not from inside his kayak).

Sue pushed the other paddlers on, not allowing anyone to beach before the needles, she had made this trip twice before but both time had to turn back due to bad weather. She was determined that tide, weather and sea sick WW paddlers would not stop her this time.

All the paddlers made it through the needles and approached Scratchels bay on the far side of the Island, here the surf was about 2’ landing on a very steep beach. Simon was the first to land in the middle of the bay but all the others chose to land further down where the beach was less steep & the surf was smaller.

Chas paddled hard in shore surfing up the shingle beach, pulled his deck, threw his paddle up the beach but could not get out of the kayak and slipped back down the steep shingle beach into the sea. He then hand surfed up and down the beach until his kayak filled with water, he fell out, loudly claiming it as a non-swim (not agreed by the other paddlers - I can hear you all laughing now).

With Chas emptying water out of his kayak, every one sat down for lunch with Chas complaining about the salt content of his lunch (as it was stored in his cockpit).

After lunch everyone launched back in successfully then surfed through the needles, with an uneventful trip back to Lymington, paddling over the hole to Hurst Spit arriving back in Lymington at 4pm.

Oh forgot to say that they stopped at Totland for the obligatory ice cream. There is also photographic evidence of Chas’s swim.

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Well my friends that is all the news at this time. I know that this is an exceptionally long newsletter but my computer has been very sick, luckily it has made a full recovery and will now let me do my job.

Don’t forget. We are back on the water at the club on May 1^st. I hope that you will all be there, raring to go.

If anyone has anything they would like me to include in the newsletter, please don’t hesitate to send it to me.

Bye Guys ‘N’ Gals

Sonia