This is the ski….

Its a pretty cool piece of kit, first step was to see if I could even balance on it, but that is all good, I do however need to master a bomb proof waveski roll which I will get working on this week hopefully.

James has also picked himself up a  Random Evolution surf kayak, few shots below of the beach 100 metres away from where we live with some surf as we test out our new surf machines….

james in the random evolution surfkayak

Wainui Beach, me and my ski !

me heading out on the ski

not sure why i got the big splash here..

Since the Crana boatercross I have bought a new playboat, the new star 2010, been to the Grand Canyon for the second winter in a row(even better second time round). I got in a few runs down in Wicklow (although there has been a serious lack of water recently).

I also tried out a surf kayak and a wave ski this weekend.  The surfkayak is way better out there than the playboat, smooth, easier to catch waves and faster. The ski is a little more challenging as I’m more used to the boats but the conclusion is : I’m definitely going to buy a ski and hopefully also going to buy a surfkayak.

Of course I have been out playboating at Sluice, Clifden, Cellbridge, Gower and Tarmonbarry… here is a video I put together of some of us who have been freestyling recently…..

So roll on New Zealand which should be packed with surf action and some helicopter rides to put ins!

We signed up for the boatercross on the Sunday 25th October 09 of the Crana Canoe Weekend online. Arrived down to check out what was happening on the Saturday…pleasantly surprised to see juniors off all ages and adults competing in the slalom competition.

The Boatercross had a novice section and an advanced section…so something for everyone. The photos below are from the advanced boatercross, on the Crana River, double drop with the Claw Hammer Rock…

The drop looked like this……

…and I inspected it for quite a while!!!!!!

Safety was put in place and I got changed, still looking at the drop as I walked up to get in above it. Turned out I was in the first heat and it all kicked off….

Me on my first heat..

Kevin Mc Cabe in his first heat.

Next heat included, Mark Coleman, Paddy Mc Govern, Neil Niall and an ex clogher roader Mark.

Mark Coleman… 

Paddy…

Mark..

Neil Niall

Third heat saw Steven, Declan O Donnell ,Colm Healy and one other…

Tight at the start but after the drop, things widened out….

Steven..

Colm…

Declan…

Other heats saw some good lines and more carnage (I don’t know all the names but here are the pictures…)

Richard Hobson with a good line in his first heat……

Some carnage as 2 boats and paddles drop into the class 4 rapid… baoters safely get out before the double drop…

This boater managed to skull out of the stopper upright…..

Faces of concentration…..

Shane Cronin taking a gasp after punching threw the hole at the bottom of double drop…

The O Donnell brothers competitiveness shining threw brighter than ever….

An absolutely fabulous day, roll on next year with even more paddlers, ladies in particular!!!!

Other photos and results can be found on the links below……

http://www.foylepaddlersisfun.net/crana_results.htm

Photos of the Slalom can be found ere

http://justkayak.ie/

and a link to more photos on flicker is on the way.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE INVOLVED IN MAKING THIS EVENT HAPPEN, AMOUNG OTHERS THANKS TO……

AND ADRIAN AT

http://justkayak.ie/

Thanks also to all the sponsors….which included …..

www.i-canoe.com

However, there are some playboating fun events coming up

http://irishfreestyle.com/node/5492

, the colligan games

http://www.colligangorgegames.com/

and our Grand Canyon trip 2 at Christmas which Im getting excited about. The  Grand Canyon is a stunning multiday with some really fun big volume rapids, some wave wheels this year as some  of us are going to be doing it in playboats and a few extra days this year for some hiking and chilling out…bring it on!…..

Looking Foward to my 2nd trip dwn the Canyon

So Il have some photos and stories up soon.

I headed to Gower when I returned for a quiet session with just myself and Siobhan heres a couple of pics from then…

Siobhan Mc Griskin

Me going for a blunt

James, Skykomish

Me on the Skykomish, Washington

Colm, Skykomish

Then down to Portland where we hooked up with Alex, Carrie, Chris, Kate and a few others….

Alex, the flume on the Wind River

James, at the top of the flume

As you can see im concentrating… this rapid isn’t one you would get away with flipping in.. Further down stream some nice waterfalls were waiting for us…unfortunately Steven had the main waterfall pictures on his camera which he later lost!!! We still have some pics tho…

James, coming into a drop on the Wind river, Portland

Me, Wind River

Alex, on the first of four drops..

Steven landing his boof

Don’t have pics of us running the four drops but I did get a snap of a group behind us as they came down….

We paddled the Deschutes the following day with the portland crew who were voluntary taking a group who ordinarily wouldn’t get such opportunities on a raft trip.We were all in playboats and surfed all the waves we could find..even James..with one big wave at the end.

Deschutes River

The day after we paddled the White Salmon run below the Green Truss, which (ahem) alex calls a play run but its not the kind of river you want to be upside down on if you ask me…however it did have a play feature at the end(where I saw one paddler swap his creeker for a playboat..!!)….

Il put photos up of that later and the BC stories…got to go for now…

Colm Healy Sheep Rapid, The Snake River

We do have a couple of pics of Sheep rapid on the Snake….heres a random raft that we could see from our camp just before  we headed off..

Sheep Rapid, Snake River

Then it was off to the Payette for a run on the staircase and the north fork canyon.. not many pics of this we were just cruising along…

The grade 6 drop...mainly grade 6 because the hole at the bottom is nasty!!

James always first to jump on top of the van..

Then we stopped off at Polouse falls to check out the world record breaking drop…and yeah its pretty high …was on the low side and we were going to give the run above the falls a blast but it was way too low…

Colm and Wai Har had to get back to Seattle, so on the way there we stopped off in Leavenworth, which is this crazy(but nice) German themed town for tourists…none the less, it has a kayak shop which sorted  Colm with a creeker and a playboat. We ran the Wenachee River  which was …hmm…not grade 3/4 as predicted, but it had a fun boof off a weir at the start and a little playwave called cave wave which was fun….

We then hooked up with two locals, John Luke who works in the shop and ken, to run Icicle creek… a boulder feast….

John Luke Icicle, Leavenworth

John Luke at the start of Icicle creek..(picture left)

You couldn’t see a metre down stream on this river…the river winded in and around large boulders….

I went round a corner at one stage , where the others had gone and just disappeared, into a ledge drop with a meaty hole…didnt get a super good boof and it was like slow motion paddling forward as the tow back pulled me back…all was good tho and the run was super fun….

Icicle Creek, Leavenworth

A quick view of Icicle Creek:

All iv got time to put up now…but the best river we ran so far was just after this in Portland…il put those pics up soon….

oh also note James took most of the pictures, we had loads of him on Stevens Camera but he lost it before we uploaded them…doh!

More waterfall pics and some footage to come…

The get on for the Snake trip..

oh we do have some rapid pics

this is sheep rapid...where we had the raft flip... we have it all on video;-)

UGH…the river living up to its name…in that picture if ya look close you can see a rattle snake which casually glided past us as wesat around camp…james and steven chased it for pics…I went no where near it…

Came across the rattle sound again when I was going back down to my boat after helping flip the raft back over so I jumped on the back of the boaat to go the rest of the way….

All I have time to put up….

We did some other rivers..the Lochsa which was pretty cool, the payette triple steps and canyon which was really really fun with some pushy rapids and a grade 6 portage, also got couple of local paddlers in Leavenworth to take us on a grade 4 boulder garden madness river.you literelly couldnt see a metre in front of you just huge boulders every where with little slot drops etc…was cool. ok gota go..may be heading BC now or meeting up with some americans in portland…..

WE now heading off for the week to do the Snake and a few other classics here near Idaho with a cool dude Bennet Barr….woohoo…..

The first day included some coaching and some practice in the hole.

+I got my first flat waterloop…not perfect by any means but still..;-)

BBQ all went to plan, the weather wasn’t bad and we included a game of football with around 20 kayakers showing off..(cough cough).. their football skills…hmm, was fun all the same. Also got the kite out..although strings took a while to sort out.

Here’s a quick video I threw together….

Unfortunately you will have to add your own sound effects because it seems youtube have gone bananas on the whole copyright music thing…boo.