Emlyn, Rob and Hywel had a lovely day out, travelling from Jackson Bay to Flat Holm and back, total distance paddled around 14 miles, 3 and three quarters of paddling all told, with over 2 hours on the island. One highlight was hearing us being discussed on the VHF by the two ships passing us, one to port, one to starboard (that's left and right for you non-nautical river paddlers), on our way out, and then further mention of us on the way back.
A great club turn out saw Matt, Piers, Paul and Ben, Emlyn, John O'C and Mark camping on the Friday night to be joined by me (Hywel), Euros and Phil on the Saturday morning. There were masses launching as we got on the water at about 11.15. As a last parting shot before we put on at the raft take out I warned people to sat fairly central going under NRA bridge as the water would take people left to the metal box above the wave. Off we went and Paul successfully picked out the metal box above the wave for a close inspection. I think we managed to score a couple of rolls - from Euros and (?) Matt - going through that wave, and then Matt pulled another roll at Chapel Falls after landing on Paul's boat in the stopper while chasing it down. (Piers swam around here too I think I remember).What a start! Cracking. Did I mention it was a respectable 10 cumec release? It calmed down a bit until a short Grade 3 section when a paddler from another group swam and didn't follow our directions for him to swim river left. As a result Ben drifted into some branches and capsized. Paul threw him a line which he grabbed and swam with his boat to the bank. At this point, years of me carrying Denso tape paid off as it was needed to stop the water pouring into a long crack on the bottom of Paul's boat. Anyway, it did the trick and off we set again. We had split into two groups by the this point, but this brought us together again and we went more or less together down to Mill Falls. We phaffed around setting up protection and went to run it in two separate groups again. This first went well, then the second went for their go. Unfortunately, when Paul got on the water he realised the water was pouring in again (you didn't seal launch in and scrape the tape off did you Paul?) and he judiciously decided running Mill Falls with a boat full of water would not be a great idea so had to carry out again. Eventually the second group got off for their run and all got down - the highlight being Emlyn who kept us on tenderhooks 'til the very end. He is the blue boat in the video:
Then we went up to run the top section. Chris made a valiant run above the Graveyard but took a swim but he had another go further down. All other details escape me now except some of us had another run of the upper section (joined by Paul who had a lend of Mark's boat: thanks Mark) and Matt and Phil had a third. The following day most of them did the Dee. Details to follow!
