The last few days I have been on a 4 Star Open Canoe training course at Llandysul Paddlers in Llandysul near Carmarthen, Wales. The centre is ideally set next to the river Teifi with prime positioning overlooking the slalom course down a 2/3/4 grade river.
Why am I doing this course? Well. I thought it a good idea to see best working practise for leading groups of peers in open canoes on various types of rivers and open water. I enjoy canoing and I want to canoe more. I guess that will involve canoeing with people. I suppose I should know what I am doing.
If you have no idea what I am talking about open canoes, think Canadian Canoes, kneeling and a paddle with one blade. The original type of canoe, whether a hollowed out tree or a hide stretched over a frame. The traditions of open canoing lives stronger than ever because of the development of these types of courses.
The Four Star Open Canoe seems to tick all those boxes when it comes to thoroughness for preparing to take peers on a trip, whether on white water or open water. I must say, I am impressed with the thoroughness of this course. Taking people on moving or open water is no mean feat. The task instills a certain amount of responsibility. Irrelevant of the situation.
Getting the opportunity to be trained by Ashley St.john-claire and Matt Blue was too good an opportunity to be missed. These guys seriously know their stuff. But Matt will always be 7 stone dripping wet, the way I met him during my last season in the Ardeche and his first season down there. He now has hands bigger than Bocca and races on the GB raft squad. Top of his game, my hat goes off to the way he has progressed throughout his skills exploration in outdoor education.
Ash has a coaching style that builds the person up and then maximises those builds. An inspiring coach embedded in making people paddle better and have fun. I love his dog and I want to paddle with Ash a lot more.
The first two days was run by Ash on the river Teifi.
Day 1 – River Teifi
We started the first day getting to know each other and showing off our skills on the River Teifi. Although we are generally in a low water situation at the moment, the Teifi still presented some technical and challenging rapids with grade 2/3 rapids. In fact the final rapid was technically challenging for everyone and a real test.
The center hosting the course was Llandysul Paddlers, which has great facilities to learn canoeing, kaying and rafting in a safe and controlled environment. I slept in the bunkhouse for the duration of the course, and apart from the fact that O2 appears to be the only mobile opeator not to work on in Llandysul, I enjoyed the facilities.
Next to Llandysul paddlers there is a slalom course and quite a few rapids worth playing in. A great location to learn and enjoy in a relatively safe environment. We had some flat water sections too, a few shallow sections, and stunning scenery as we covered about 10km on this day. I was also introduced to poling. Something I have been avoiding for many years because I thought it was too geeky. But I stand corrected. I enjoyed poling. I am buying a pole.
There’s a lot to see from this river and it is a gorgeous environment to paddle in. Challenging and playful rapids allowing you to explore your skills and the outstanding beauty. Our exit from the river was quite tricky. We were exiting 40 meters infront of a weir, described by our coach Ash as: ” Nasty Death”. More on this later. But the easiest exit from the river to the boat trailer and ride home involved carrying the canoes single style . So a canoe per person carried resting on your shoulders upside down. Lots of hauling using ropes and grunting the boats about 100m vertical later, the day for us was over.
Day 2 – River Teifi
The second day built on the experience of the first day and involved re-running and playing in the rapids of the Teifi. We as a group were responsible for the timings of the day, and true to form we over ran. So we ended up with a repeat exit from day 1. Lots of huffing and puffing and hauling canoes in a general upwards direction accessed up a set of stepladders and a 100 meter steep upwards climb with a canoe on your head.
Day 3 – Open Water – The reservoir
I have always avoided getting too involved with paddling on open water like reseroirs and lakes. It has never floated my boat so to speak. I prefer white water rivers. So in all honesty, I was not looking forward to a day on a huge reservoir. [I need to confirm the name and location of this reservoir. I will update this post when I find out.] Again I stand corrected.
Matt Blue ran the day. Packed full of information, no sooner than we had started paddling in formation around the lake than we had arrived at lunch. We navigated to a bank and tucked into our own version of lunch, which in my case always needs to involve macrels in mustard somewhere along the lines. It is truly the best river food, tried and tested in the Ardeche courtesy of Super U.
The next part of the day was to involve rafting up and building a rig and sail that we could use to sail around the lake using a tarpaulin as a sail, a log, ropes, a few roof rack straps and karabiners. This is not the easiest to explain, so a picuture paints a thousand words etc. Here is the story in pictures.
Lash two canoe poles together
Creat a raft using a log and two canoes.
The sailing rig
The Team
All in all I had a superb 3 days. Great peple, great paddling, inspirational coaching and new lessons learnt.
