Glenn and my goodself stand on ceremony for a picture of Glenn's new Pyranah Burn kayak before we headout onto the river. Glenn is clearly looking forward to the outing whilst I'm more than a little apprehensive about the mighty Kaituna (translated as River of Much Eeels). I also wonder at this point how I will manage with only one arm (see picture above). Glenn is a great instructor and before long I was making it from eddy to eddy until....(yes it was all going just too smoothly) we began practicing T rescues. This is where I capsize and whilst under water still in the kayak I use my eyes to watch for Glenns boat come at right angles to mine and the nose bump into me. I then put my hands out of the water and push up on said nose and flip myself upright again.
I managed the first two but when we swapped to my "other" side I completely messed up. I could see the water surface just inches above me and how I wanted to take a breath but to no avail and then I fell out. Not so bad you might think but I now had to swim across a flowing river to make for dry land and empty out my kayak. "Swim hard" Glenn said. Nope it was not working and pretty soon it was bump, submerge, bump, oof, ouuch over the drop in the rapid until completely exhausted still holding my kayak I made it to the far bank.
Glen seemed unpreturbed whilst I felt my protective adrenalin drain from my body. Still all part of the learning process I thought and then for my next challenge to manouvre over my first drop. Glenn gave me the option of just rafting down it with him but I felt ok and setup nicely, sweep stroke and down and through the frothy white wate.............Fantastic and to much releif!! We did the same run again in the afternoon only without the drama !!
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