Nathan Eades & Marc Holland working their asses off!

Having a great surf trip so far. Marc Holland arrrived in Peru last week and we quickly headed North to catch an incredible swell at Chicama. We have been here for 3 days now and are all absolutely worn out from surfing long, long rides! Time to leave for the tour to continue, we're off further north to surf another of Peru's classics; Lobitos!

Nathan 'Yellowboy' Eades
Nookie Team Rider

Ron Fischers Year of Comps so far.....

After all the blogs and trip reports I have written of my travels this past year to southern Patagonia and Corsica, it‘s time to tell the tales from the kayak competitions I‘ve attended this year.

In March 2011 I spend almost a month on the most beautiful river I‘ve ever paddled, the mighty Futaleufu. Since this river and many others in Chile are threatened by dams, locals and paddlers are organizing a festival for people from all over the world who share the love for the river. It is called the Futa Fest, and is a three day event with lots of action, chill-time, mate-drinking and asados. The first day saw a fun boatercross happening through the rapids called Toro and Mundaca. After winning the first heat, I took my first swim this season, in the Mundaca hole, in front of
150 people watching! woopwoop! Local hero Santiago Carlin took the gold medal home tothe town of Futaleufu. The next day the competitors all teamed up at the start line for the downriver race, the more prestigious competition of the event: A 10 km class 4 big volume run. People were in all sorts of floating crafts: T-canyons,Frankensteins, playboats, creekboats, Kendos, Stuntbats, Dancers and beyond. After a very slow start, I managed to still finish the race as number one, after a bit more than 24 minutes of paddling. Due to more than a few months spent in my kayak this past year, my muscles have gotten accustomed to long days or distances on the water, allowing me to sneak up from behind to pass the leading field a little while before the finishline :) My girlfriend Mariann Saether from Norway won the women‘s category, so all around Happy days...


This is just after the start. I'm still 3rd last...

Val Sesia Sweet Rumble River Festival had it‘s premiere edition the last weekend of May. Around 40
kayakers met up in Campertogno Italy, enjoying a great weekend together. Egua-Freeride Team race and a Boatercross were all being held on Saturday! The Egua-Freeride was a totally new kind of kayak competition. A mix of downriver freestyle moves and extreme race! In the early morning everyone showed up for a one hour freestyle session down the first slide on the Egua river. Straight boof, paddle-spin, free-wheel, back-wheel, kick-flip, some bumm-slides and flying-exit‘s were being shown. The top three moves of everyone counted max 20
points each. Afterwards we cruised down to the last four drops of the creek and raced each other and the clock! The winner got another 20 points, the second 18, 17, 16,.... In the end I won the first edition of Egua-Freeride... woopwoop! Next race up was the Team Race on the Sesia river. Funny enough I pinned between two rocks and went for my second bootie beer of the season: Thanks to Boby Frieser and Jakub Sedivy for rescueing me!

In the middle of June one of the biggest Kayak events worldwide got held for the third time in the livley city of Ivrea, Italy. The TEVA extreme outdoor games always attracts the top kayakers of Europe and also from the rest of the world. The Downriver extreme race, King of the Falls, Slalom, Sprint and Boater-X are the disciplines. The first two are held on the mighty Chiusella, a small and steep creek running through beautiful valley. 60 of the world‘s best

kayakers lined up for the Time-trials of the downriver. Only the top 20 are thus allowed to race on the King of Falls section, one of the most difficult, spectacular and dangerous race sections in the world. After I landed a 6th place in the downriver, I managed to place first in the King of Falls and was really happy about it! The next three disciplines were held on an artificial slalom course in the town of Ivrea. I had less luck with racing here, but at least I did not swim for the third time on the third competition.. ;-)

King of the falls!

Right now, I‘m on my way home from the Extreme sport week in Voss, Norway, an outdoor-multi-sports event. It is the biggest of its kind in the world, and gathers athletes from all over the world for a week of spectacular performance. Base-jumper, paragliders, mountainbikers, longboarders, climbers, parachuters, skiers, rafters, and kayakers competed during the day then went to awesome music concerts organized by the festival at night. The Kayak race on the blue waters of the river Brandseth is also one of the most prestigious worldwide, as it is recognized as a hard course to be fast on, even if it has less consequenses than races like the Green Race and the King of Falls race in Italy. Two runs of around 1‘40 minutes is the name of the game, both counting. On my first run I didn‘t find the good flow down the whole run, but still placed 3rd with a time of 1‘40‘15, two seconds behind Michele Ramazza and just a bit behind Sam Sutton, the current World Champion. My second run went much better, I found the flow through every rapid except one big mistake after the waterfall that cost at least a couple of seconds. My time: 1‘38‘05. Not fast enough. Dag Sandvik snuck up from behind, having the fastest run of the day with 1‘34‘.. and came in 2nd in the end! Congratulations! Michele then claimed the 1st spot, Sam 3rd and me 4th. Mariann won with a 17 seconds lead to the second girl in the womens category after a good first run, with a time of 1‘45, which put her tenth in the Men´s. Though with some mistakes in the second run, she ended up 14th in the men‘s in the end. Congrats!

I‘m surprised how well I did so far in competitions this year. It makes me excited for the rest of them this year... the Sjoa-Festival, the Sickline race and probably the Green race. Bring it on!

Roadtrip to North America - Flo Fischer

Part 1: It never rains in southern California...

"It never rains in southern California!“ Everyone of us is repeating this world known phrase all the time. You can feel in the voice that this is a joke. While I was preparing for my four month visit of California and British Columbia I imagined pictures of blue sky and extremely hot sun. Many guys who have been here before reported of a single rainy day per month and extremely hot temperatures. But this time many things are different. Since about two weeks it’s raining all day long, sometimes you can see the sun, but only for a few minutes. Another problem is the huge snowpack on top of the mountains which drains the rivers with a lot of water.

On May 20th I arrived at the San Francisco International Airport. All my luggage and my boat arrived as well and are in best conditions – I’m happy! Me and another friend started immediately to look for a used car to buy. After some trouble and three days later we packed our kayaks on top of our own car.

Our first trip was to scout the South Silver River east of Sacramento. It’s an amazing river with lots of huge slides and drops. The next day we started to scout if the waterlevel is good for that mission. It’s a pity, there was way too much water in there so we discussed what to do next.

So we went back to Placerville to check some online gauges and a few hours later we found ourselves on an evening run at the South Fork American River. The waterlevel is quite high as well, so it’s an amazing big water run, perfect to get ready for the coming weeks. The upper part which we run the coming days was amazing technical whitewater with many drops and slides. We did this part as a two day trip because we took so much time with taking photos.

Next mission was the South Fork of the Yuba River, which is also a very nice and interesting river, not far from the American River. This is a perfect mix between big water rapids and some technical drops. At the take-out we met a group of kayakers around the local guy Charlie Center. These guys told us that the South Branch of the Middle Fork Feather has a perfect waterlevel and they are going there tonight. They invited us to follow them.

We knew only one thing about the South Branch: This is a "must-do“ for every kayaker in California. After three hour of driving, we found ourselves at the put-in to spend the night there. The next morning Charlie introduced us in what’s coming the next 3,5 miles. We prepared our boats on a gravel bar. Everybody was keen to go. As I took my paddle to push my boat into the water I asked myself many questions: Will the rain make the shore that slippery that it’s not possible to scout? What about "99 Problems“, a difficult 40-footer, Charlie talked about? Just around the first corner it started with some small drops and boulder strewn rapids. A first 15-footer was the beginning of the steep and interesting section of the South Branch. We looked downstream and the only thing you could see was one horizon line after the other. We hucked down uncountable drops between 10 and 25 feet until we reached "99 Problems“. This is a little bit uncommon 40-footer with a difficult lead-in rapid which is waiting for some more descents. Still pumped with adrenalin we reached the must-do portage. After a little bit scary shore-launch we reached almost the end. There is just one drop left. A perfect shaped 50-footer is waiting to get hucked.


After one hour of steep hike out it was clear. This is one of my top favorite rivers worldwide.

The weather forecast is getting better. Just three more days until there should be perfect weather, sun and high temperatures. So we checked some more waterlevels and two days later we found ourselves on the next must-do. The Dry Meadow Creek. After one day in the sun at the seven teacups we returned to our cars with more then 200 Pictures on each camera.

Let’s see what’s going on: The waterlevels are rising but there are still some classic runs with perfect levels, like the upper/middle cosumnes.

Florian Fischer
Nookie Team Rider