Day 21
Despite a good sleep,
it was another late one last night. I’m
super tired and once again struggling to stay on my feet. There’s a group going to do the Briancon
Gorge today which is NFM (not for me), and Gregg and Chucky are staying at the
house with plans to potter about and take it easy for a day. I’m going with Keith, Jamie, Sam and Rob to
go and paddle the second half of the Sun Run on the Durance. This is the bit from Rab to Embrun which Sam
and I didn’t paddle last time. I also
didn’t do Rab wave last time either.
We get to Rabioux and have an inspection of the wave. It’s considerably lower than last week, but
possibly still a little bigger than I ran it last year. We sort the shuttle then get ourselves kitted
up. I’m feeling nervous, even a little
sick and I can’t tell you why. It feels
daft but I think maybe the fatigue is kicking in, and I’m a tad worried about
going straight through Rab wave without much of a warm up. My internal monologue is very much external
on the way down. *Keep Paddling, drive
the boat, be effective, look ahead, loose hips, paddle forward, ready with a
brace but keep paddling...* Some of the
waves in the approach are almost as big as Rab itself, and I make it through
the wave just fine. There were a couple
of moments of hesitation but at this level and a good line in it doesn’t affect
me too much. I have a delayed woop, I
can’t woop until I’m safe in the eddy and off the boily eddy line. I’m fairly awake now!
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| not so impressive in a picture from the bank |
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| What it looks like coming in to the wave, There are kayakers in the eddy here if you can see them to the right!!! |
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| Yup that's the view in the middle of it! |
After Keith has had a couple of goes at playing in the wave
we carry on down stream, following the nice wave trains. I’m really enjoying myself after a while,
with a bit of wooping over some of the bigger waves. We stop a couple of times to give Sam a
break, she’s finding it hard to get back in to the swing of paddling after a
couple of days off, and possibly the tiredness is hitting her too. She’s paddling fine but her head games are
getting the better of her, and every time she apologises we all tell her it’s
fine. Everyone struggles with these head
games from time to time, and it’s a sign of her determination that she keep
going, even though she’s clearly terrified at times on the water.
When we get down to Embrun, we break out a little way
upstream to make sure everyone is ok, and we go down as a group but giving each
other plenty of space. I manage to read
the water and watch where the guys in front of me go and what that line does,
pick my own line and it’s a pretty good one.
I don’t make the eddy as high up as I’d like but it wasn’t a bad run through
at all. Keith has a couple of goes at
getting back in the wave, gets eaten and spat out after a short side surf, and
then we all have lunch on the river side.
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| Going in to Embrun |
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| In Embrun |
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| Keith going for a surf |
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| You can just see him... |
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| If you look carefully you can just see his hat cam... |
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| Oops, nose up just before he's spat out.... |
Once shuttles are sorted it’s back to the house, Tom Tom are doing BBQ
for dinner and it’s soon time for chatting and laughter. Jess also arrives tonight, Chucky has been to
pick her up from the airport after a few delays to her journey meant she was
going to miss buses and trains to get her closer.
I start to feel the fatigue hit me, it’s making me feel I
need some space alone and I head to our bedroom after I’ve eaten to look at
some of the days videos, and catch up on a days worth of blog. It’s not so late before everyone is heading to
bed too and after a bit of a chat when Keith comes to bed, it’s off to sleep
for us too.
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