River Clyde - 1/4/2007

Brian has asked me to kill him a few different times and a few different ways now. So far, I have been unsuccessful, but not for lack of effort. An EKC beginners trip on the River Clyde provided the most recent opportunity, his first kayak trip, and four of the seven swims of the day as his made for a solid showing. Unlike the river, the day was warm and pleasant. Good company made for a good day out. Callum organised the trip. Rather than another venture to the same old places, Callum opted for something new. Hence the Clyde.

Five of us piled into Callum’s truck and headed west. My first job of the day was sat nav, reconciling the guidebook description with the map. Along the motorway, we saw something very silly. After the motorway, the route was pretty straightforward. Brian helped by serving as sign reader, letting me not wear my glasses. We found the get-out relatively easily. The put-in was slightly less obvious. It was yet another random layby that sent us tromping across a field down a hill to the river. The most important thing to remember about finding it again is it is downstream from the power station.

George had said the Clyde always has enough water to at least scrape down. While technically that was true, a level of scrape is a touch challenging for a rank beginner.

We separated into pairs for the trip which meant Brian had the added challenge of trying to stay behind me in my short, stubby, slow C1. Our first stop for the day was break-in practice in a nice friendly eddy. Eventually, that spot claimed two swim. One was Brian’s. The other belonged to another whose name escapes me just now. Both were respectable swims. They were trying new things, not just getting flipped by running the rapids. Break-in practice went well overall. I realised the reason why Ali says I don’t do anything for my break-ins is because the techniques I was taught versus the SCA syllabus teachings are totally different. I use the duffek stroke. They use a sweep and a plant/brace. Same effect. I just look like I’m doing very little in comparison.

After break-in practice, we came to the most challenging section of the day. Brian swam three times. Oddly enough, he got through the most difficult bits without so much difficulty. Well-timed advice from Colin (PLF) helped a lot. Not until after the first two of those three swims, though. The first was his and my fault. He got ahead of me and stopped paddling. The second was slightly more my fault. I told him to follow Alan who took a crap line and got stuck on a rock. Had he stayed and followed me, his odds of success would have been much better. I took the same line as Ali, which was very straightforward and only slightly bumpy in comparison to Alan’s, which was neither.

Swim #4 was another legitimate, trying something new swim. Callum explained the concept of the ferryglide. The river was slightly swift so it didn’t take long for the streambed to be examined. The warm weather and great big fireball in the sky led to a strange but welcome change in EKC trip practices. We stopped for lunch.

After lunch, PLF kicked in full bore and from a carnage perspective, the trip got much less interesting. Brian got better at following me, too. He stayed well back so that by the end of each wee rapid, he was mostly caught up but not ahead. He did remarkably well at the one spot where I crunched over some very exposed rocks.

The last rapids of the day were under the bridge just above the get-out. At higher water, some nice waves may have been there and perhaps a nice stopper, too. Instead, it was a rocky ledge. We ran it sort of ducky style, one after the other, although it seemed to get a little congested once we were through. A short float took us to the getout.

The get-out is a bit personal. A right of way to the river runs between two properties, so the walk to the cars felt very much like we were walking across somebody’s back garden. We carried our boats as far as a convenient wide bend in the road and the drivers brought the cars to meet us there. Getting changed there felt a bit exhibitionist. Here we were among a bunch of houses and presumably families doing something that paddlers are not always modest about doing. As far as I’m aware, no complaints were filed, so it all ended well.

We piled back into the cars and headed back to Edinburgh. The rest of lunch was good. The red sheep were still there, but they were far enough from the road that photos would not have distinguished them from regular sheep. Tragically.