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Massive weekend in Wales

This is what really happened on that weekend which is now the thing of Legend.

I was in Wales 27^th & 28^th Nov’99 on a 5 star open canoe training course provided by Ray Goodwin, oops sorry “Theee Ray Goodwin” as he refers to himself, says he’s 6’5” which makes me 7’ 8”.

  These are the only details about which Ray uses his imagination, when he talks about water & canoeing he’s a deadly serious guy.

The weekend was fantastic, that’s if you have some sort of masochistic tendencies, Irish Rangers, SAS or the US Navy Seals would not have a look in….. This was a weekend for the seriously dedicated canoeist.

This is how it went…

Saturday:

00.30 hrs             Bed

04.00 hrs             Up and on the road.  (Thanks Aideen).

06.40 hrs             HSS departs Dun Laoighre for Wales.

08.30 hrs            Arrive in Holyhead.

09.30 hrs             Meet group in Capel Curig 

Instructor Theee Ray Goodwin, first person in UK to hold 5 star instructorship in Kayak, Sea Kayak and Open Canoe. This guy has numerous epic journeys to his credit including crossing the Irish Sea Dublin – Holyhead in an open canoe and various US trips.

Bill Taylor.

Bill was also a very experienced paddler having completed several journeys in the US and his paddle from the North of Scotland over to N.Ireland, down the west coast to Kerry, along the south coast to Rosslare, across to Wales, up the English channel, up the east coast of England and Scotland and back to his starting point in Northern Scotland, a trip which took some five months.

Chris,

Another 5 star canoeist, great guy and a solid paddler, big into Celtic Male Bonding!!!

And Brian 4 star very capable paddler.

And myself.

10.15 hrs           On the water. Spent most of the day on a Reasonably easy river, looking at boat rigging, how the boat was fitted out for gear, trim safety etc. We spent a lot of time on the water looking at  leadership, control, hand signals, ropework including tracking & lining, poling upriver & snubbing downriver. All in all quite a busy day.

16.00 hrs          Hauled the canoes off the river, at this point I was thinking about a shower and change of clothing and something to eat, NO said Theee Ray we had to get into our cars in our wet gear and drive for an hour and a half to Bala

17.30 hrs          Arrived at Bala Lake in the dark with driving rain in a force 4 wind we were given 4 grid reference points and had to navigate in the dark across the lake with a force 4 wind. With lashing rain, paddling into the wind, with wind on right, wind behind, and wind on left.  I could only see a vague outline of the other paddlers as I bobbed up and down and did my best to stay in the boat.

20.00 hrs          Arrived at the shore at a wooded area and set up campsite using canoes and tarpaulins etc.

Cooked some food, Theee Ray was a dab hand at the outdoor cuisine he had tea and coffee, soup, a tasty pasta dish, pizza, he even made a cake. I had the old boil in a bag chicken curry, which was fine on the night, but I felt I should do some research on the cuisine aspect for the next trip.

Theee Ray even produced a few bottles of wine for the nightcap.

We then crawled under a tarp and into the sleeping bags, all this about 20-ft from the raging lake with the wind howling in the trees. I hasten to add there was no Celtic male bonding during the night or at any other time.

Sunday

03.30                              Woke up at 03.30 am, I thought someone was holding a garden hose in my face, “Where’s the *@!*ing Tarp”, our only protection from the driving rain had taken flight and was gone.

I lay there for some time wondering which was worse…

Plan A.  Stay in the exposed sleeping bag and get drenched.

Plan B. Get out of the sleeping bag, wring it out and stuff it into my £1.99 orange bivi bag this way I was also doomed to getting drenched.

I opted for plan B and  stuffed the wet sleeping bag into the plastic bivi bag and tried to get some sleep.

06.30                              Good morning he said… it’s breakfast time.

08.30                              Broke camp, reloaded the canoes.

09.0                                  Set off into a force seven wind towing a thing called a “drogue” which is basically a sea anchor and is intended to slow the boat down and keep the stern pointing into the wind. It was all I could do to keep the canoe upright and away from the various headlands, which came up downwind of us. We paddled (or tried to survive) until 12.00.

12.00                Terra firma at last, bewildered locals looked on as the canoes came ashore, I think they were going to get the men in the white coats, but we were too quick, yes, Ray’s old trick again…. Into the cars in the wet gear and drive to another location for some more torture.

13.0                                 Arrived at a canoe centre, river similar to the Boyne but with 5 or 6 weirs in very close succession,                              there was also an old mill, with canoe accessories shop, changing rooms and a café….

Food at last, could we keep Ray talking long enough so that he might cancel the afternoon session??…you guessed it … not a chance!!

13.30                               Practised travelling upriver using tracking with ropes, eddy hopping, some advanced paddling techniques. Worked on river reading, picking lines in the river and rescue set-ups

16.0                                   Thought we were finished, Ray told us to take our canoes out of the river, what a relief!!!

16.15                                OK Everybody back in for rescue techniques….. in the dark !!….

At this point there was almost a mutiny..

Ray introduced us to the “Gotta Gets” what’s this you might well ask,

Well it’s.. “You Gotta get the throwbag or swim to the eddy, or we gotta get the ambulance! … “  What an incentive.

17.0                                   Course finished Thank god!!

18.25                               Ferry back to Ireland cancelled due to the bad weather. So I treated myself to Sunday night in a nice hotel. No more boil in the bag chicken curry or wet sleeping bags.. thanks very much.

Monday

11.30                                Arrived back in Dublin….

Great course, I really felt as though I had been put through the wringer, learned a lot and got an appreciation for the canoe as a journeying craft. There is so much more than just paddling and I think it would be a shame not to include these aspects in the ICU syllabus at level 4 & 5.

Paul Maguire

06/12/99