Having paddled a few whitewater rivers before, though never at Nottingham, I felt confident for my first run down the artificial course. The water level was raised progressively during the morning, but I didn't get on until the afternoon when the flow was probably 3/4 or more. First run: I played on a few small features, spent some time at the Looping Pool trying to surf, but missed the break-in for the Muncher so went on down. Then came a small fall which I dropped over more or less sideways into the bottom stopper.

And the stopper held me! No problem, lean downstream and try a few draw strokes. Hey, this is sticky. I was facing the wall and couldn't see any obvious way out at that end. I tried to move the front round to do a pop-out and fell in, rolled up -- and was still in the stopper. Now I'm worried. I had expected that the capsize would wash me out and this is a new situation for me.

What next? Thoughts passed through my mind: "how long until they turn the water off again?" and "why is that man watching me instead of throwing a rope?".

It seemed a long while but I was probably only there for much less than a minute, with a total of three rolls, before I managed to get turned around with my back to the wall and moved to the end, got the stern down and paddled hard out over the shoulder. Exhilaration turned to pleasure when I got out and found that a few Addlestone paddlers had seen my exploits! Getting trashed in front of an audience is much better than just getting trashed!!!

By the time I'd walked back to the stopper, Mark was in stuck in much the same way. Seal went in then - to try to free him I think - and suddenly there were two ACC members stuck at the same time! Then Seal lost his paddles and carried on hand-surfing (and hand-rolling...) for quite a while until he finally had to bail out. Top entertainment!!!

And the moral? - That weekend I improved my surfing and boat control a lot but one definite thing I learnt was not to drop sideways into stoppers you've never seen before!

by David Morgan, August 1999