Park n Sink!?

The International Mystery Gathering 2009, once again took place at the mighty Chassezac Seam. 15 minutes hike deep into a scenic gorge you find this...

The Chassezac seam, The river flows around an island converging and dropping to the depths of the river bed, sending squirtists with it!

A bunch of Squirters from the UK and France descended [sorry about the Pun!] to the Ardeche region of france to test out their lung capacities

Unfortunately the River bed had changed, so the seam wasnt offering unlimited rides [as seen here ]

Still the water was clear, the sun was out [mostly] and it still offered up 15 second plus rides

Full day sessions gave pleanty of chance just to chill out and watch the action, or join in and swim with the fish

Day dreaming about the deep...

Ben

Ear, Ear Summer is here

At last. After a rubbish winter of having my left ear drilled, followed by several months of no paddling and then light activities, my summer of 2009 has started with a BANG.

I have just come back from 10 days in Scotland brilliant coaching and creeking with the TEAM R.OX guys from Riverside.Oxford. All the guys came on in leaps and bounds, styling all the usual west highland classics by the end of the trip. Thanks for a great week guys.

(Paul on the Pinball)

I spent the week suited up in my new shinny Assualt Cag and lovely restyled Xtreme Dry Pants.
They performed super good together keeping me dry, warm and toasty through out, a awesome combination. We of course during the week had to play with Big Man Falls a real highlight for the TEAM R.OX guys and provided much amusement as ever :-)


So with Scotland over the Summer of 2009 is finally starting. It will see me out at Hawaii Sur Rhone big wave freestyling, Creeking with Alex, James & Ron in Switzerland, Sea Kayaking in Angelsey, Canoeing in Wales and coaching in the French Alps, all topped off with leading a canoeing trip for a disabled group down the River Wye for 4 days. No doubt more blog enteries will follow so watch this space.

So another busy exciting summer ahead, hopefully full of smiles, happy memories, new friends and maybe even a new Nookie Dry Suit ;-)

Stay safe out there

Rob Yates
(pics thanks to Chris Shadbolt & Brian... cheers guys)

Great Britain Team Trials

Great Britain team trials

It started four weeks prior to the event for Dan and I. We had devised a plan for training and were set to try as hard as we could to get wave dialled in before the event. Fortunately for us the event was being held at our local spot the mighty Hurley and with the thought of it being a wave gate only event we were excited to get stuck in.
First things first, the plan. We decided to do what we called smart training which consisted of a total of an hour a day kayaking focusing on individual moves and then analysing where we went wrong. The first week went well with boring James joining us in his open boat to get dialled in. After each session we sat huddled in a car watching back the evenings paddling and trying to work out where we went wrong so next time we could stomp that move .
Our sessions were always held at a time called Light Club, it’s a local only night session where Dan brings a generator and a handful of sunshine so training can be concentrated as there would only ever be 4 in the eddy. Remember the first rule of Light Club is “You don’t talk about Light Club.“ I’m going to leave the second rule to your own imagination.

The second and third week consisted of doing every move we could think of in 45 seconds and slowly eliminating the small tricks as the big daddy moves became more consistent. On several sessions we would do a every drop do a move, so basically every time you rode down the face or cut back to the top you had to throw a move, now this is good for wearing you out and to get your reaction boating up to scratch .
The next step was making sure that we could hit a move within the first five seconds of getting on the wave. This was timed by the next person in the eddy and if the move wasn’t executed you were booed and geered from the eddy. The classic problem with my boating and Dans is that we really like the surfers right shoulder so the next step had to be left moves only to make our rides vary more, for the first few days I hated it but by the Wednesday of the week I was surprised to say that I could pretty much transfer all my tricks over to the left apart from a few big tricks which still needed work.

The final part of the on the water training was to choreograph runs and practice them. First I knocked together a run and practiced it and as the final week went by I began to add bigger scoring moves and eliminate small tricks, so eventually my run if I got it dialled on the day would produce a 960 point ride with Dan producing a similar score. Our rides were surprisingly different with Dan doing flip turns both ways where as I opted for the clean panama and clean back stab.
With the on water training going well I wanted to increase my strength endurance and explosive power to aid my kayaking. Being an avid gym user I changed my 3 day a week workout to aid my paddling goal. I joined the Pilates class and spent a lot longer stretching. I also changed my weight routine to a lighter weight but rather than a normal repetition I had to throw the weight in to the air and catch it every extension thus increasing my explosive power and doing this many times at the same time increasing my endurance. Finally ensuring two litres of water were drunk daily followed with a sauna and then rehydrating session.

The day of the event I woke early had a big ass bowl of cereal and hot footed to the weir to meet Dan and register. After registering we found out when we were on and then headed to the gym to warm up stretch and have a super long relaxing sauna to take our minds off the event.
Finally down at the weir we had a twenty min warm up paddling up stream and then stretched on the bank for a further ten. I spent a good ten mines watching other people take their rides to try to get a feel for what was going. The wave was peeking at what Dan and I like to call the Brazilian level, a steep green level with just a tiny tuft of foam pile. When the wave is like this you get that same excited feeling as when you get "lucky" hence the name.

The rides.
Dan was in the first heat he looked like he was going strong hitting what I thought was pretty close to his pre planned rides, he had a few unfortunate flushes but overall he was skying some sweet air and looked like he was having fun. My rides were next second heat bib 9. I was pretty nervous myself as I dropped in, super nervous in fact so for the first ride I just got a good feel for the wave. It was perfect. My second ride I began to get dialled in but still paddling like a bit of an idiot, the nerves had got to me. By my third run I was far more chilled out and managed to happily string together a nice ride landing my clean panam and clean back stab and clean blunts both ways. Final ride I went balls out throwing every move I could. Paddling to the eddy I was almost certain I hadn’t made team neither squad. I stayed on the water to paddle for a while and just enjoy the sweet wave.

Paddling back I stopped off at the tent to take a look at the scores and to my great surprise I had done it . First place and by a long way and pikey was 3 points off making team. What a great day. All that training really paid off.

Next stop training in BC and then to Worlds.
Many thanks to Dan Chamlet for keeping me focused and getting on the water every day with me to train and cheers for all the cups of tea and good advice Rob Cooke .
Congratulations to everyone else who made team reserve or squad and to anyone who got on the water to paddle such a sweet wave........... It’s not every day you get wet riding the Brazilian.

images by : Boring James (Bradly), David Bainbridge and Matt Kenna

Doug Cooper

Nookie Team Rider

GOLD GOLD and GOLD Again!

Hey guys.

I've just arrived back in the UK and a bit jet lagged so sorry if this is a bit garbled! Just wanted to let you know that i've just won gold...again :-) at the Santa Cruz Kayak Surf Event in California. I had a good week training before the competition and was feeling good but really small waves made it an extremely tough event for everyone. Somehow I managed to find something to work with and make it to the final, by which time it started to shape up at about 5ft faces. It was still pretty weak surf so it was all about finding the best waves, taking off deep and solid surfing...not much opportunity to go off the lip or bust aerials so it was a really close final. Fortunatly for me i managed to find the best of the waves and pulled just ahead of USA team member and Santa Cruz local, Galen Licht. Winning the event feels great and especially as it's the 3rd year in a row (first time that's been done i think). But as always it's just great to get over there and surf with some great surfers and friends.

Thanks again to everyone for your continued support it's really appreciated. I know that Canoe Kayak magazine (USA) are putting together an article about the event so should have some shots in there. I'll be doing something for magazines here in the UK and kayaksurf.net has already got the news up. I'll also be getting some shots up on my blog asap.

In the meantime there's no let up. I'm talking at the Outdoor Show this weekend in the NEC, Birmingham...bit nervous but will be great for the sport. Then the coldwater series gets underway the weekend after and i've just started writing the book...which will definately keep me busy for the next year or so!

Hope everyone's well. Take it easy

Chris

www.chrisharveyonline.net

Doug Cooper surfing in Morocco

Getting on a plane at lunch time with a full blown reoccurring attack of malaria is defiantly not a nice thing but never the less there was no way I was going to miss my flight. I bought it 3 weeks prior and it cost a bomb so man up and get on with it . Sitting in my seat delirious, Natali had to hold me still to stop my shaking limbs from hitting the bloke next to me who seemed to be ever edging himself towards sitting in the isle in fear of getting the plague.

Finally arriving the boys put me in a cab and got me to the place we were staying in. So for the next 3 days I lay sweating and shaking and bunging tonnes of pills down my neck whilst Danny, Natali and Craig absorb the exciting and vibrant street life of Marrakech. I hate Marrakech any how, so was glad to be hiding in a room away from all those hustling rude Moroccans.

On day 3, Nat and Christine arrived and it was time to leave Marrakech and my riad tat I had come so well acquainted with. Still feeling dizzy I bagged a cab across town to the bus station whilst the others had to run in fear of missing the bus. Once on the bus we had five hours to kill until we arrived in dusty Agadir. Finally I was feeling like a spring lamb again must have been the lunch.

Getting off the bus we all grabbed a taxi . The driver wanted some extortionate amount to take us to our final destination, so with my new found energy I set about knocking him down. An hour of sitting on Danny’s lap in the front seat of a rickety Merc we were in Taghazout and it had cost a hundred Dirhams less than originally quoted. Finding a apartment was easy the taxi driver had a mate who owned a pretty impressive set of apartments and was happy to cut us a bit of a sweet deal. Sorted! All moved in, showered and in need of a serious eating session we headed down to town for eats and to watch the sun set in to the ocean . The surf was pretty consistent but never really that big we spent our days cleaning up on 6 - 10 ft at a few different brakes such as Mysteries and Panoramas.

A few times I headed out to anchor point but the point was often crowded with angry egotistic surfers (usual story) but the mellow rights at Panoramas was by far enough to keep us smiling.

One day we woke up particularly early and headed out to a beach brake called Tamree, this spot is a north coast swell catcher every bit of swell is slung at the beach creating some fierce waves that batter the coast line. We arrived in glorious sunshine with what seemed to be a steady 20 ft swell. Whilst the sore headed relaxed on the beach I grabbed Craig and told him we were going out back and we were going to bag some big rides.

Getting out back wasn’t as hard as expected as the bigger waves built in what appeared to be a bit of a channel half way along the beach. Once out back we chilled for a while catching a few smaller waves for a warm up . After half an hour of mucking about we headed across in to the line up. Craig took of on a few medium sized waves while I waited and waited for a big set. Craig rejoined me out back in the line up perfectly in time for a phat set to appear on the horizon line. As the wave began to form I lined my self up nice and deep and a few strokes secured me skidding down the face in to the ever building bowl. Racking a fast carve I glanced behind to take a look at how the wave was building, to my horror just in time to see the wave curling over with Craig some how at the very tip of it poised for a millisecond before he fell tumbling down the face of the wave and then sucked back up and washing machined. Chuckling to my self I rode out of the bowl and cursed the face for perhaps thirty seconds and then bailed.

Looking back in to the soup I could see Craig, he looked at me and gave me the 'i'm done look' before paddling back in to the beach. The rest of the day was spent blissfully cranking the faces of big waves and chucking lovely big air moves. I guess thats his bad karma kicking his ass for wearing Yak kit:). A week later we were blessed with another days big surf. In the morning we spent our time catching the edge of anchor point, nice but not huge. By the afternoon the waves were still good size but the wind had picked up and messed up the whole beach now surfing no longer was surfing it had become like running big volume class five getting out back just was not going to happen but it was fun trying until I got myself in to a bit of a tricky situation.

Catching a good sized wave I dropped in and before I new what was going on the wave began to close out and pipe up. Holding the carve I figured I could ride in to the soup and to safety. No sooner had this popped in to my mind I found myself picked up, washing machined, smashed on the sand bar, lost my paddles and shoved on to the beach where all I could do was to throw up until all the water was out of my system and flounder about in the shallows looking for my paddles. Well after that little beat down I decided I ought to spend the rest of the day on the beach making a fire and the all important digging of a hole.

Days went by turning in to weeks followed by Christmas finally our stay drew to an end and it was time to pack and make the long arduous journey back to the airport and home. For me the journey didn’t end there. I arrived just in time to hot foot my way to university where I found myself in the main lecture theatre doing my end of year exam and thinking what the weather was like back in Morocco.

Doug Cooper

Nookie Team Rider

Pimp your bag....

A suggestion from Team Rider and SRT Rescue 3 Instructor Alex Keller....
Make your Nookie Pro Throwline even better! On many rivertrips, steep creeks and deep gorges you've got your bag on you. But how often do you ever use it to throw? Most of the time, bags are used with the static
ropes for many other things than just to throw for swimmers. On advanced trips rope is needed to abseil, install safety backups and build Z-drags, pig-rigs and other rope systems. In most of these situations
ropehandling would be smoother and faster without the bag on it. With an simple system you are able to release your rope from the bag in a few seconds:

Open the knot inside your bag, take the rope out and cut a small piece off it. Melt the two new ends with a lighter. With the new piece you can build a small loop through the two holes in the bags bottom. Make sure
that this loop is not so big that you could grap through it with the hole hand from the outside (dangerous to get stuck in it). It is important for the loop too that you use a knot that holds for sure!
Recommanded is the Double Fisherman's knot or a Double Figure of Eight follow through. You must be able to connect the rope also on the bags end for high loads! Inside make a Double Figure of Eight into the new ropes end and connect it with a small karabiner to the loop. Make sure you don't take any karabiner. The small ones you find in every climbing store for a few pounds. They hold loads up to 2500kg and are cheep enough to leave somewhere in a gorge if you have to abseil and can't get back to take it with you. Note that hardware must be always stronger than the rope! And that knots take a lot of the ropes strength:
Knots from the Double Figure of Eight family between 20 and 30%, other knots up to 40%...

take care

Alex K
Nookie Team Rider

"A wave in Paris ???

Hi Dan,

Your new website is sick! Congrats!

I've made 2 vids of a wave in Paris but few things are in French.

Part1


Part2



Is that possible? Yes it is. France has more potential than we thought for Freestyle! The wave you’ll see on this clip is 15 minutes driving from Paris and 500 meters from where I live. It works from 2 to 8 weeks per year when the water is super high. If you want to know the address, just buy a Nestle product in France because their Headquarters is on the bank next to the wave =)
The clip shows many different paddlers from Paris in their routine including Jules Gallais, Julien Morel, Hugo Clouzeau, Bilal Dahamani, our guest star Sam Ward and me. Hope some of you understand French... or maybe it’s better for you not to listen to this shit lol!
When this spot isn’t working, we paddle at Joinville or Azy a new spot we have just found. Watch the pics !


Cheers
Léo Carpene”

I’m also finishing another vid that i’ll send you in few days.

Have you seen my new DVD “Le Nil Blanc”???

Léo

Ecuador & Peru - Surf & Ski

Hey Dan,

Just got back from a great trip travelling the coast of Ecuador and Peru surfing some amazing spots. Spent half the time in my surf kayak and the second half putting my ski through it's paces. The water temperature varied from really warm to cold so my combination of Short-Sleeved Ti, Long Sleeve Ti, Board Shorts and Three quarter length Strides worked really well!

We spent 4 months away in total, the first 2 months; fellow team mate Marc Holland and myself worked with 'Deadman Productions' finishing off 'Interference' surf kayaking video, and collecting footage for a surf kayak instructional surf kayaking flick: "Interference Presents: Surf Kayaking Basic Skills and Advanced Techniques"

The last 2 months were spent with my girlfriend Naomi James finding as many surf breaks as possible and surfing until our arms went numb! Back home now to earn some pennies and go play again!


As always thanks for the support and making these trips possible!

YB
Nathan Eades - Nookie Team Rider

Hard Times!

Well it's been a bumpy start to 2009, Started in Morocco for some surf action [I'll post up some shots later] which unfortunately left me in a bad way in hospital with Leptosorosis! Totally drained and 2 stone lighter I needed cheering up so, a night out was definitely called for. At this point I'm thinking I'm definitely the unluckiest guy in the world! As a really nice bloke for no reason, punches me in the face, fractures my cheek and breaks my nose in two places!

Back into hospital for a small operation to get my nose back to straight [ish] and I left being told that under no circumstances was I to do anything to risk breaking it again for 6 weeks, argh! So here's some photos of me taking it easy for the first 4 weeks of recovery


Me not styling it up for the camera

Not getting my bike dirty @ Delamere Forest Bike Park

I'm not enjoying the Pyranha Ammo out on the rivers

Not making the most of Hurley on 4

I havent really been creekin in a playboat...

Ben

Not really having that much fun ;o)

Steep creeking in Nepal? It's possible!

Namaste! After I won the Himalayan Whitewater Festival I went back to good old Pokhara. It's a good place to relax and get ready for the next mission.

me, enjoying the first drop

Close to town is the Seti River. After one run of the upper Seti five weeks ago, I said:"Never again!" It was just rocky bullshit. But then, Anton and Will came back from a first descent of one canyon further upstream of the normal put-in and told us about great waterfalls in a narrow canyon.

So we went up there for a few times and paddled the shit. It was just incredible to find waterfalls like this in Nepal! So much FUN! Enjoy the pictures...

early morning in Pokhara. ready to go!

thanks the Porters!

me in the lower canyon, second drop...

and first drop
Basti goes for a SICK boof!!

Yesterday we came back from a other trip up there. But this time we went further up to a other canyon which nobody had run before. It wasn't that good, just two nice drops and the rest portage. But still a good adventure with campfire, sleeping outside, climbing through the jungle and exploring a beautiful valley where not many people have been before.

nice drops and crazy jungle on the upper canyon

Now I'm back in Pokhara, waiting for a call from the police so that i can pick up my kayak. I'm such a lucky man that they found it and the guy who have stolen it! Yeahh, I hope he goes to jail!

Thanks to Tim Ripper for the pictures! more of it at
www.picasaweb.google.com/timripperphotography

all the best

Don Ron

Team Riders rock the Himalayan WhiteWater challenge

Ron congratulating Lilli after she won the ladies freestyle event

Namaste from Nepal, the favourite destination for team riders this autumn. Lilli, Ron, Tim and James have been racing round this superb country enjoying the excellant multiday paddling opportunities the Himalayers have to offer. Last weekend most of the paddlers met up for the Himalayan WhiteWater challenge on the Trisuli river, the event was made up of a slalom, rodeo and downriver race. In the International Mens Expert class Tim finished in second place and Ron took the top spot, in the Womens event Lilli finished in third place just a few points behind the top spot and I made a clean sweep of the combined C1/OC1 class by virtue of the fact I was the only canoe paddler in attendence! We all won a nights stay in an expensive hotel in Kathmandu and Ron also scored a Safari in Chitwan National Park, sweet.
We are now chilling in Pokarha for a few days washing ourselves and our things and making some plans for the next mission.
A few shots from the event, not much as the internet and computers here are challenging!

Me hitting an old skool pirouette

Champion Ron in the house

Lilli preparing for the final round of the knock out finals by stealing Antons rum!

Air loop creak boat stylee

The party, everybody loves a party and this one went off, I still have no voice

Stay safe world and come visit Nepal with your canoe, it is superb!
Lilli, Ron, Tim and James
Nookie Team Riders on a mission.
PS
Some thieving toerags took Ron's lime green Riot Thunder 76 kayak and Kober Scorpion kayak paddle from the event, both are easy to recognise as they have big Nookie stickers on. If you see this boat on the river in Nepal or India, or anywhere for that matter please let us know, there is a finders reward.