By Del Read
Photos:
Tom Clare
Del Read
https://delkayaks.co.uk
@del_likes_kayaking
Tom Clare
www.facebook.com/tomclaremedia
@tomclaremedia
I have debated about writing this article for a while. With each of these swims came feelings of shame and anguish. But I have had a lot of time to reflect on them all, and through these reflections, I have been able to take away valuable lessons. I am not encouraging recklessness but simply highlighting what I have learned as I gain more experience. I have written the swims in chronological order of when they happened.
1. SWALE – SCOUT, SCOUT & SCOUT!
2. ETIVE – IF THERE IS A HOLE, MAKE SURE TO BOOF!
3. TWRCH – BE HONEST WHEN YOU ARE SCARED
3. Twrch – be honest when you are scared
Roll on another year, and I have been boating for three years now and am regularly running a variety of rivers. Cue a very wet autumn day in Wales with two paddlers I have only known for a few weeks. We were deciding what to paddle, and I am painfully aware of how much better at kayaking both of these guys are. However, I was the only one with a car, which is how we ended up together. My friend suggests the Twrch as a ‘warm-up river’. We park at the get-out and walk up the river to see how it looks. It was high, and some of the rapids looked a bit scary – possibly not a ‘warm up’ river for me. But my friends seem keen, and I don’t want to let fear get in the way of a good day. So we get on.
new experience
Having never paddled ‘ditch’ rivers before – this was a very new experience for me. Eddys didn’t really exist – instead, you had to cling onto the sides of the bank whenever you wanted to stop. We start paddling, and I am a bag of nerves. The water is way too fast for my liking, but it is okay in terms of difficulty, so I get on with it. Then at some point, I seem to get in front of the other two and go around a bend. There is a river-wide tree blocking the way. I shout to my friends to get out but have no time to get to the side myself. I end up going ‘through’ the tree. There is a place where the main trunk dips under the water, and I squeeze between the trunk and a large branch coming off it. I make it through, roll up, paddle to the side and get out.
I go over to my friends to reassure them that I am okay. They are understandably worried – seeing as I just went through a strainer. They look at me concerned – ‘your face’. It is only then that I realise I have slashed my eyebrow, and blood is now dripping from my face. I insist I am okay, however, and we continue. I am utterly relieved when we get to the get-out.
I am mortified that I have paddled ‘so badly’ and apologise multiple times on the way home. We get back, and I insist that I will cover the petrol costs to make up what a bad day of paddling I must have caused them. Only a couple of years later, when my friend told me how bad he felt for that day, I realised they didn’t hate me for being such a beater. I had been so embarrassed at how ‘terrible’ I was that I had not considered they would think differently. That they just felt bad I had had a horrible day and had been worried about me. I regretted not telling them I was scared and that the river was too hard for me. That was the lesson I learnt from this day.
