As the 2010 winter season starts, it's high time for me to blog a trip again. I met with Matt, Aled, Bryn, Iwan, Chris W and David at Llandysul at 9.30. When we were ready to go about an hour later we were approached by two paddlers (James and Becs) who work at Call of the Wild, Neath, looking for company as it was their first trip on the Teifi. The river was at a good level, as can be seen from the gauge record. What this meant was that the weir at Pentre Cwrt was still runnable, just, and Henllan was as much of a rapid as a fall.
Anyway, a good time was had by all I think. The first near incident was when Matt got caught just below the weir and managed to roll on about his third attempt. Just as I was warning another paddler in the eddy where I was waiting downstream that one of his group looked as if he was about to swim I realised it was Matt!
Chris wanted to get in position to take some photos of the group coming down so I led off with Chris following. A few seconds later and I was boat chasing. Not many photos there then.
Henllan was the main excitement as usual. Matt went first, followed by David (who had put in some good paddling in the grade 3 stretch below Pentre Cwrt weir), me, Aled, Bryn, Iwan, Becs and James (I'm not 100% sure of the order of those behind me). As I got down the falls there was a boat and paddle in front of me. The safety guys got the boat and I got the paddle and I continued down to where Matt was rushing away to make sure David was OK. A minute or two later I paddled back out to recover a dry bag (Iwan's I found out later) and a few minutes later rescued a swimmer with a throw of my throw bag. I threw straight! (All that practice a couple of weeks ago when we had a white water safety and rescue refresher at Brecon paid off!). So we scored swims by David, Aled, Bryn, Iwan and Becs (after 3 rolls trying to avoid Aled's boat). Chris didn't paddle it but tried to get a photographic record. Actually, it wasn't the fall itself which caused the carnage but the rapids above.
Having shuttled back to Llandysul, Matt, James and I then had a warm-down paddle on the river by the centre.
Thanks to all involved. I enjoyed it and I think everyone else did too.
Hywel
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