Happy Daisy in the aftermath of a run on the River Teith

aftermath2

Happy Daisy dries with a view

A Scottish to American (Southeastern) Dictionary for Paddlers

The get-in and get-out are the put-in and the takeout.

Canoes are paddle craft. Kayaks are kayaks, but are a form of canoe. Canadian canoes or open canoes are canoes back home. C-1 is the same on either side of the pond.

Kit is gear, made up of the essential pieces of gear. Paddles are paddles, although there is another word for them as well. Spray decks are spray skirts. Buoyancy aids are PFDs. Hats are helmets but helmet works, too. The Scottish word for splash jacket or dry top is something definitively Scottish, incomprehensible to my American ears, and, sadly, I've forgotten it already.

In Scotland, the word river precedes the name of said river. For example, we paddled the River Teith (pronounced teeth) on Sunday, although you might like to think we paddled the Teith River. Grades I through VI whitewater compare reasonably well with Class I-VI back home. The Teith is a friendly grade I/II run suitable for beginners.

River signals are pretty universal. Point where you want people to go, not where they shouldn't. Scots get pretty specific with one person at a time, two at a time, or everybody come on.

Break-ins and Break-outs are eddy turns and peel outs. One might break into an eddy to take a rest or scout the next section of river. One might break out of the eddy or perhaps ferry glide across the current to an eddy on the other side of the river for a better look. They emphasize the reverse or back ferry glide much more so here than back home.

River left and river right are still in the same place. Strainers are still things to avoid. Stoppers are holes and, like back home, not every stopper is a friendly stopper. Weirs are low head dams, which I knew from teaching the kids back home, but apparently not everybody knows that word.

Faffing is wasting time. Faff factor five is a charmingly alliterative way of saying that quite a bit of time is being wasted and there's nothing you can do about it.

A Trip to the Pool

I found kayak club #2 on Tuesday. The Edinburgh Kayak Club meets every Tuesday at the Gracemount Leisure Centre during the colder months (Sept --> Apr or May) and at the ponds in Musselburgh during the warmer months. For L3/visit or L1.50/shot, anybody can have a shot at playing in the kayaks. In the pool, sessions are limited to 20 mins and if you're there early enough you can get two shots easily. When the sessions get less crowded, you can get three. In the pond, the turns can be longer. Money goes toward the pool fees as well as club kit, so it's at least going toward the right place.

The bus system is still new to me, so I had a list of the proper busses to catch to get to the GLC. I had only a vague idea of the route, so I figured out the proper bus number and stop just as the proper bus was leaving. Oops. I was fashionably late and clueless when I arrived, but it all worked out at the end. I watched for a bit, and talked to a nice Scottish woman who had brought her grandkids for an evening adventure. Her daughter lived in Florida and hated it, so we had a few laughs about that. I figured out who was doing what and started asking people if they could tell me more about the club, the rivers and such. I talked to a few nice people who said all kinds of trips were going out, and like the uni club, we could borrow kit from the club and club trips would be going out all the time. Also like the uni club, not too many people paddle Canadian. There's one Canadian trip each year, an overnighter, where they borrow additional Canadians from other clubs for their trip. But otherwise, nobody really paddles Canadian.

We talked about kit some, and one girl was talking about dry bags in her kayak, except she didn't call them dry bags. She called them something that sounded like "cow stomach". I don't remember what it was exactly, just that it was a phrase I had never heard, that sounded like cow stomach. It took me a moment or two to realize what she was talking about. And, of course, being from America, I have requests for specific kit already. Somewhere in all of those conversations, Lucas called. He sounded a wee bit jealous as I was surrounded by kayaks and kayakers and he had just gotten home from class. I told him about the club and we figured sooner or later we would have to pick a club.

After all that, I decided to have a go in the pool before heading home. I picked the big pointy boat again, and realized very quickly that rolling it would be next to impossible. But it was fun to putter around and play on the walls for a little while. It was sort of like my attempts to roll a MAX. Tip over, hit the side, hip snap, flop back to the bottom. Repeat ad nauseum. Next time, smaller boat.

Like before, I missed the timely bus and the next one showed up half an hour later. There's only one more per night, so if I decide to partake in the post-pool pub outing, it will have to be a quick partake or I would need to ride my bike to and from the pool session. All worthy options.

This club is a tiny bit more expensive than the uni club, but the group is much more diverse. We wouldn't be the geezers. We wouldn't be the youngsters. And we wouldn't be the only ones not running the hair rivers. Each club has it's perks, but the city club is feeling more appealing at the moment.

Kayak Surfing at Pease Bay (9/16/05)

Here in Edinburgh, it didn't take us long to find the first kayak club. I found the Edinburgh University Kayak Club at the Freshers Week Sport Fair and we went on our first outing with them two days later -- kayak surfing at Pease Bay. We met at the lockup (where the boats live) to say hello, load boats and pack gear into two minibusses and a trailer. I expected a short jaunt out to some place like Musselburgh on the Firth of Forth, with wimpy waves. Nope, we stopped at the big grocery in Cameron Toll and then drove for nearly an hour to reach Pease Bay on the North Sea itself. For you map geeks, try this location out for size. If you see the word "Cove, follow that little gray road down to the cove. That's where we went to play.

We drove down the bumpy old road and beheld (?) the sea of single wides and double wides surrounding the sea itself. The Pease Bay holiday community brought us all sorts of warm fuzzies from home. The boys got one bus for changing and the girls got the other. Borrowed gear is always fun to tug on, especially boy sizes around girl frames. Once suited up, we hauled the gear down to the beach. We had about eight boats to share amongst twenty people so people played in shifts. I started off taking pictures. After the camera died (battery only, I hope), I watched Lucas paddle out pretty far. My guess was that he (a) didn't realize how far out he had gotten and (b) wasn't having an easy time getting on the waves to get back into the beach. The boat he had picked was a bit on the wee side, more my size than his.

I decided to try my luck with the Necky Jive, the biggest pointy boat of the lot. My spray deck was in use by Lucas and I really didn't want one anyway. The waves were bigger than I'm used to seeing at NJ's beaches, so I wanted a feel for them before committing myself, especially in somebody else's pointy boat. The surf was easy to catch. I didn't have a spray skirt -- it was attached to Lucas' waist and I had my apprehensions anyway -- so by the time I reached the beach, the Jive was a solid anchor on the sand. Dumping the water out was a two person job or a one person hernia. I found another newbie to the club and we swapped out who surfed and who dragged the surfer out to the proper starting point. And so the ritual began. Dump, drag, whee!

After about two hours of play, a small storm took our sunlight away and it got cold pretty quickly. Actually, it wasn't all that warm to begin with, so it got colder. The sun makes a lot of difference. Lacking the proper warm fuzzies, I made a run for the changing busses.

The storm didn't last, but neither did the daylight, so most everybody followed us out to the busses. Once warm, we washed the gear in the nearby freshwater creek fire brigade style. Some of the club members started the grill by the beach and eventually we joined them for (over) grilled burgers and sausages. After the first round of burger briquets were consumed, the coals settled to the proper grilling temperature. The sausages came out better and better until round 2 of the burgers dripped enough grease to get the fire going strong.

Dusk was dog time at the beach. At least half a dozen dogs were out with their people. One of those lucky dogs feasted on greasy burger and sausage bits that had fallen through the grill. As the sun disappeared further from view, we huddled closer to the grill. Then somebody started a bigger fire nearby and we relocated to the warmer spot. The beer flowed more freely as did the river stories. Our list of suggested first Scotland whitewater trips included the Tay, the Spey and the Tweed.

Close to 9pm, they finally had enough of the cold beach and decided to relocate the party to somebody's flat. The timing was critical because the off licence shops closed at 10pm and more alcohol was needed. Lucas and I, being old people, decided that we would call it a night when we got back to town and leave the partying to the young folk. We piled back into minibusses and headed back to town. We beat the bus with the boats and wet kit, so we hung out a bit until it arrived. We said our goodnights and headed for the comfort of the pillows.