Sun..Surf...and Sand

The sun greeted us late in the morning as we set up the booth at the Hobuck Hoedown. The event is Washington's largest Ocean Surf Comp, drawing dozens of competitors, hundreds of spectators, and even World Champ Sean Morley.

I can say, the Zone Shell with the Latex Free Gaskets was a huge hit, no salt water and sand irritation and the surfers kept occupied, stretching and poking my gaskets! They all held up.

1st Place Prizes in the top three heats were Nookie Products, Surf Skirts and a Zone Shell.

It was three days of fun and sun, while the rest of the state was pounded with rain, we seemed to catch a positive weather pocket. This was my first time to this area of the coast, and I will be coming back. Thanks to Rob for coordinating the event http://www.hobuckhoedown.com/ and inviting us. Next stop, the largest event in the Northwest US, Wenatchee River Festival.

French Spring 08’ - Léo Carpene

The Freestyle kayaking season in France has already started since a few months now and all the different waves worked one after the other.
Noisiel wave started to work in February for the whole month. That was nice, because my houseboat is about 300 meters from Noisiel’s dam. All the paddlers from Paris came for the occasion; we even had Sam Ward paddling with us as he stayed two weeks on my boat to visit France. It was the right time for us to take some shots and to warm up before the coming of big waves.



We then had the competition season with two stages of the French National selection: Millau and Metz.
Millau was under the snow, the wind and the cold water whereas Metz was a super cool contest in the centre of the town with the sun, good music and nice girls =)
The hole was pretty easy and it was the time to try Butterflies for the first time.


Here is a video of the week end:



The water rose up on the Doubs the same week-end I had to help my girl-friend moving house so I did not catch La Scie and La Malate but I was so upset that I drove 10 hours alone directly to Lyon and I got all the different levels in four days. When I arrived the water was super high and I went down very fast as I was here. It was hot and nobody was on the water except me and Mathieu Dumoulin. We had crazy sessions!

Checks the pics and the small clip I made:






I know going to Gabon for 6 months training on the sea and getting ready for the Worlds in Thun!
See you when I’ll be back…

Cheers

Léo Carpene
Nookie Team Rider

StraightDownStriit and the Nookie foto kontest

Awesome is the the way to describe yesterday, we paddled, raced and partied 'til we couldn't stand up. StraightDownStriit is one of the hardest kayaking races on the calendar, challenging class5 rapids and high water meant every competitor had to work hard to get down the river.

Nookie team rider and event organiser Ron Fischer cleaned every line in style and took first place in the mens creekboatercross race.

The highlight of the event was of course the party and the Nookie foto kontest. The rules were simple enter your best three photographs of the event and win cash, the standard of entries was incredible and a big shout out to all the photographers who entered. Pictures paint a thousand words so without further ado the results of the StraightDownStriit Nookie Foto Kontest, applause!

First place photographer of the Creek Race and winner of 100 swiss francs Michi Gaehwiler

First place photographer of the Fun Race and winner of 100 swiss francs Nicole Offenhausen

Last but not least first place photographer in the Lifestyle catagory was Eva Gruenwald

Thanks to the organisers for putting on such a awesome event we look forward to StraightDownStriit 2009.

Happy Boating

Rob & James

Ron Fischers Pakistan Adventure

I’m looking back to an amazing trip to Pakistan. I was a little bit scared about a trip to this country, what with the media coverage of terrorist bomb attacks etc, but after these five weeks I’m sure that this will be the next kayak destination. The people are always friendly, the food is good, the rivers great and there’s a road into every valley. We found a lot of BIG rivers like the Indus, which have a flow between 500 and 5000 qm3/s, depends of the season. But there are also creeks and a lot of rivers for beginners as well.

We started our trip on the Indus River, where we did the first complete descent of the Rondu Canyon which is about 150 kilometres long. Many teams have attempted to run this canyon over the past years, but all of them gave up after the first half at latest, because of the high flow. It’s a big river with very technical rapids and numerous siphons and caves.

After this lucky mission we tried our good luck on the Astor River. This river flows down from the 8124 metre high Nanga Parpat which four members of our team will climb up and ride down with skies in June.
The first 50 km were beautifully white water between class III-V with a flow of 40 qm3/s. After that the river falls down with a gradient of 500 metres on a length of 5 km till the Indus. Bernhard Mauracher and I run this part including several portages. That was the most difficult and dangerous creek I’ve been ever kayaked. After two days in the gorge we finished on the confluence to the Indus River with a big smile in the face.

So, the hard rivers were done and we had two weeks more time to kayak just for fun. The Indus was a perfect play spot to check out the “BIG water ability” of the Nookie kit which was always a true friend of mine in Pakistan. It keeps me warm and dry all the time.
We also get the permit to kayak on two rivers in Kashmir, which nobody did before.

Wherever we came to, we found always friendly people and the best white water. That was my first and definitely not my last expedition to great kayak destination Pakistan.
See you

Don Ron
Pictures: Peter Fink

LIVE from the secret Swiss Nookie HQ....

This week finds Nookie Team Riders James Weir, Rob Yates & Alex Keller exploring some of Switzerland's finest white water before heading off to race at www.straightdownstriit.ch
Some of pics of yesterdays cracking adventure follow.....





















Alex leading the way in style

Rob probing















James OC1 possible first descent of the Medelsbach


In the mean time the team are doing some more boating, meeting the Lambley, walking Ekmek the hound, BBQing food in the sun and drinking beer. Watch this space for more updates from our continued adventures this week.

Stay Safe & Happy

Rob, James & Alex

Why?

I have a lot of people ask me why I squeeze myself in-between two sheets of expensive glittery composite just to go and sink!

A group of mystery zombies from all around the UK gathered in the Ardeche region of France last week for what is going to become the annual pilgramage to the mighty Chessazac seam. Arguably the best spot in Europe, set in a stunning canyon, it constantly gave long rides. It was hard not to find your soul here. Not got a clue what I'm talking about or just thinking i'm mad, well, a fish eye view on why...

Spreading the Squirty Love

Ben

New Surf Kayak DVD soon to be released....

There's a new surf kayaking DVD coming out later this year and the producers have released a bit of the Morocco footage, myself anf Marc Holland are seen having a few waves in it. Anyway, the vid looks like it's coming together well, check it out if you've got a few minutes to spare in work!!

Follow the link, then head right down to the bottom of the blog page and click the very small 'Play now' just above the comment section... www.rapidtransitvideo.com/blog/?p=53

YB
Nathan Eades