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Aire Waves
Leeds Canoe Club Blog. We paddle... lots!
Airewaves used to be Leeds Canoe Club's magazine letting people know what the club was upto. Its quite hard work pulling together a publication letting people know what the club is doing and publishing dates in advance is always hard as things tend to change. Step forth the blog.. Push button publishing for the masses. So here is the idea a few people in the club take it in turns to write up trips and talk about things in the club.
Sunday, May 21, 2006Slovenia - may 2006
Day -1: after months of talking and planning it was almost time to head of to Bovec in Slovenia for a week of paddling the river Soca. Boats were packed full of kit, and taped into plastic bags and mark's van was loaded up in wait of the 5am start the next day.
Day 0: drive to stanstead airport. No problems at all checking boats in. they weren't interested in how much they weighed! Though the guys at the xray machines complained about us taking photos! Trieste airport saw us queueing up at passport control whilst watching all 6 boats going past us on the luggage conveyor belts! A very welcome sight!! Hire cars were got. It rained heavily on route through italy & slovenia. Who else could be happy that it was raining on holiday! a few stops to check the boats were ok on the inflatable roofracks, and then we arrived in the apartment for a quick unload of kit and then beers and pizza.
Day 1: Warm up paddle! Raining heavily. River level high, boats fell off one of the cars! One off the back & 2 onto the bonnet of the hire car! Paddled the soca from bunkerji to cezsoca. River was very fast, and a mix of grades II - IV. With a fantastic very narrow and long grade 4 gorge with very boily water. Gill swam early on, Andy & Mark swam near the end of the gorge, Mark self rescued but Andy's boat disappeared down the river with Jonny (rescue ranger) & Nick (Dr.Evil) in chase. After crossing the river once on a line, and 10min walk down the bank. we found nick & jonny on other side saying boat was just a bit further down stream. It was decided that I would go acriss the river on a zip line (gavin was desperate to test out his safety & rescue skills form the previous weekend's course). After a nearly drowning i was over and then a short walk to my boat revealed that round the next corner was a bridge (the b*******!). All in all an epic first day.
Day 2: The tributary to the soca, the Koritnica was high so we paddled that. An extremely fast river that was mainly grade II with a short grade IV gorge by the get in. We finished the trip so quickly that we also re-did yesterdays paddle without any epics. Though it should be noted that those that didn't swim on the gorge (gavin, nick & jonny) all had to roll after/through the main drop in the gorge) but the swimmers (andy & mark) but got perfect lines this time!
Day 3: warm and sunny, no more rain. Paddled srpenica 1, 2 and Trnovo 1 sections which started off gently, before getting progressively harder, grade III/Iv big boulder eddy hopping. before arrival at the grade IV/V slalom site. Excellent paddling. Mark had the day's only swim just below the slalom site. Jonny chased after his boat but had to stop at last chance eddy above syphon canyon. we picked his boat out of the grade V/VI syphon canyon. It got stuck just above a syphon filled with wood and luckily was on the same side of the river as the rest of it.
Day 4: Otona section. the best section on the river. grade 4 gorge paddling, with 100m vertical descent to carry boats in (well boats were lowered on ropes for part of it).
Gill had 2 swims. Andy had a symphathy swim leading to jonny somehow rescueing gill & boat and then having to rescue mine. Nick also managed a swim ... he forgot to pay the river gods today.
Day 5: Nick's birthday. Re-did the Otona section. No swims but the river gods kept nibbling at dr.evil leading to a double figure roll tally. after a stop for pizza we also did the srpenica 1 to slalom site section. again no swims.
Day 6: redid the top section of bunkerji to cezsoca. very enjoyable last days paddle. Gill did a final swim from the gorge that ate a few of us earlier in the week.
The day ended with an attempt to hide the scratches on the hire cars and a trip to the source of the soca.
Day 7: pack up, drive back to italy. fly back to stanstead, drive back to leeds.
Overally an excellent trip, and a recommended place for a week of boating.
Andy (on behalf of Gavin, Nick, Jonny, Mark, Gill & Andy)
© Leeds Canoe Club