I’m a smaller paddler, weighing in at 69kg and only 172cm tall; now many of you larger paddlers out there might be saying, “you lucky little !@#$”, because I can fit into nearly any boat. Sure this is true for playboats and basic river runners. But as far as creek boats are concerned it is very difficult for me to find a good fit with so many large creek boats on the market; which often make me look like a small child whenever I sit in 80gallons or more.
Now the small Solo is fantastic for me and anyone smaller; however, when looking for something faster with more space for over-nighting and so on, it is the medium Solo which I find is truly tremendous. After a close run in with a siphon it was also the medium which was responsible for getting my paddling confidence back.

This year has been a great year for rain in South Africa and our rivers have been swollen for months now and a larger boat suits the increased volume perfectly. I have been lucky enough to spend considerable amounts of time in the Lowveld paddling the Upper Sabie and Mac Mac rivers as well as in the former Transkei region, where arguably the toughest and most remote rivers in the country lie. The medium held out perfectly - very quick, boofs without any real effort and fast to resurface. It took virtually no time at all before I was back to normal hucking bigger and better stuff than ever before. </span></p>
The medium is an ideal expedition boat for smaller paddlers and brilliant kayak for bigger paddlers to take on lower volume creeks – in short it is a perfect medium for any boater (excuse my lame pun).

Enjoy the pictures.
Scott Reinders

sailing over Double Drop on the U2

Styling the 1st rapid of the upper Tsitsa

Quick to re-surface on the sticky “Greg’s Rapid” U1

being silly

Good day on the river

Posted on August 5th, 2008 by admin
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It had been over a month since my little incident with the siphon on the Mac Mac, my body had sufficiently healed but I wasn’t so sure if my mind was still in it. Of course there is only one way to find this out. Bags and boats packed I headed back to the Lowveld, this time on my own. It was a week before the first annual Induna Extreme Festival; enough time to get my mind back in the game. My good friend Christiaan Van Rheede Van Oudtshoorn (thankfully also known as “Oudts”) graciously put me up for my time spent there. He was the chief organiser for the event and we spent the next few days trawling the river for strainers.
The first day we hit the popular U2 section of the Sabie, the section playing host to the event. This section holds some great action with big rapids, long slides and Decent drops. While I must admit that I was very conservative on the river that day, I did enjoy myself and only portaged one rapid ‘ known as “Hugh Twice” because it nearly killed Hugh Du Preez twice (or so I’m told) and is the longest and one of the most dangerous rapids on the river so who could blame me for portaging it on day one?

Dewalt on the big slide

Pacing through a rapid called “The Hot Gates”

Scott Running the infamous double drop with the big slide in the backround

Oudts styling the second half of “Hugh Twice”

Scott running siphon falls

Scott showing off the new Medium Solo
Day two, we planned to run the U1 section of the Sabie in the late afternoon after Oudts finished work. Not a bad idea, seeing as the section is only 7km long. The plan was to be on the water by 16:30 and at the take out by 17:45. It’s funny how different things actually turn out. We only left the Induna headquarters at 16:55 and were at the put in by 17:10. Not so bad right? Well our next delay came when our shuttle vehicle could not make it back up the hill. For the next 45min we pushed and pulled at the truck until it finally made it up the 200m muddy track. On the water by 18:00, that gave us roughly an hour of light left. There were four of us and we all new the section well enough to bomb down most of the rapids blind. We could make it.
In hind sight it was one of the best things for my confidence to bomb down solid class IV with a time limit. All was going well, when we hit a particularly nasty rapid. Of course there was no time to take a pictures (But I’ve provided some images of a previous trip with Craig, bare in mind that the water this time round was nearly a foot higher). Gerhard, an Induna employee and a very promising paddler took an unfortunate swim below this rapid and above a nasty natural weir.
 

Craig shooting the fast and nasty one in 2006

With our time hampered a bit by the swim we carried on. We reached a blind rise, something I couldn’t remember from previous trips. Gerhard walked, Jaco and Oudts decided to run it and if I had known what lurked below I would have walked too. The two described the line and then dropped over, leaving me alone in the eddy. Thankfully, as I rounded the corner the memories came rushing back and I knew what to do; I also remembered that if I stuffed this up I would disappear over an unrunnable 50ft drop. My line was good.
We then proceeded to take the long portage around the 50ft waterfall.

Scott running the bottom drop of the forgotten rapid (2006)

Scott on the drop below the unrunnable 50fter
 

There is a set of cascades, of which the first is unrunnable. It was well into dusk and it was obvious we wouldn’t have time to run any of them bar the last one, which needed to be run blind.
The portage took longer than any of us wanted and by the time the Gerhard joined us in the pool below the final drop it was dark.
Thankfully, all the major rapids were behind us; however, there are far scarier things active at night on African rivers ‘ Hippos!!!
In single file we paddled as fast as we could, not saying a word and just listening, for 3km or so. It was one of the scariest times I’ve experienced on a river, fearing that every bump in the river is going to rise up and bite you in half or that every rustle in the bush will result in a charge. Thankfully we made it to the take out safely; nevertheless, the next time I paddle the Sabie (a.k.a Fearful One in the Shangaan language) I will make enough time in case of any hold ups.

In the next part of “What a Wet Season”: Bombing down all the rapids of the U2, chainsaws and strainers followed by the carnage fulled Induna Extreme Festival.

Happy Paddling,

Scotty R

scotty@lifebywater.com

Posted on June 2nd, 2008 by admin
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2008 has been a fantastic season for paddlers in South Africa; we had such an abundance of rain that for the first time in many years it was actually difficult deciding where to go and paddle.
For me two places stand out, the lowveld in Mpumalanga and the Maclear region in the former Transkei.

Enjoying the grandeur of the Transkei
The rain began pelting down back in December and levels in the lowveld were ideal. With a car stacked full of boats myself, Luke Longridge and close friend/shuttle bunny/cameraman, Dave Schneider made our way north. First on the agenda was the newly discovered Dante’s Inferno, a massive cataract dropping 85ft in just over 30m. The double drop known as “Double Delight” still needed to be run and was up for the taking. For a full account of our day at Dante’s click here.

Leaving Dante’s Inferno
Next stop was Induna adventures where we aimed to brave all the upper Sabie sections and the seldom run Mac Mac river, fate or the river gods would intervene here, but more on that later. Upon arrival the first thing we did was check the water levels and it was immediately clear that we needed to run the Mac Mac.
Completely rain dependent with a small catchment means the Mac Mac river only runs for a few weeks of the year. The river is choc full of awesome rapids, big slides and nasty little surprises such as undercuts and siphons. The first section after the put-in is a nice easy warm up with class II to III+ rapids, there are one or two bigger ones which require scouting. We reached the first bridge where a nice straight forward rapid greeted us, however; this leads into a massive slide/waterfall, called Venus falls, that is unrunnable.
After taking a scenic portage around we were back on the river. Below this the river is similar in character to the above rapids except for a nasty slide which holds a hidden rock at the bottom, Luke found out about this one first hand but no real damage was done to his ankles. Below this is another bridge with a nifty little drop starting from right under it. There is a nasty under cut on the right and a precise right hand boof is required to avoid it. From this point the gradient really picks up and there are a series of massive slides which follow very closely to one another. The problem here is not all of them are runnable and it goes something like this: slide #1- runnable, Slide#2- unrunnable, slide#3 runnable, drop/slide#4 - runnable, slide#5 unrunnable. So be very careful when you reach this section and make sure you scout properly. We had our own bit of drama here when Luke ran the third slide and decided to hop out his boat (right above the fourth drop) to set up safety for me. As it turned out the water was slightly deeper in the eddy than he thought and he soon found himself swimming right at the lip of the next drop. I managed to get a throw bag to him in time but there was little we could do to save his poor Fluid solo from disappearing over the drop and then continue down the 5th unrunnable slide. Fearing this could be the end of our trip we embarked on what seemed to be a feeble search for the lost/damaged kayak. After half an hour we stumbled across it in a side channel half submerged in a strainer. The boat had suffered a major dent in the stern but nothing more; so credit must go to Fluid kayaks for making such a sturdy boat that can withstand the punishment of an unrunnable and very breakable rapid.

Luke on slide #3

Little did we know but this was only a small bit of drama compared to what lay ahead of us. We reached the fourth bridge and we were faced with a rather mean looking rapid with a “so called” clean 3m drop into a pool. Luke was sceptical and I was confident (I should have taken cue from him). The technical rapid was similar to the slot machine rapid on the Thrombi section of the Umzimkulu river with a longer lead in. I eddied out above the drop and lined up. The line was good until I hit a rock at the last possible second and fell onto the cushion wave side ways. I knew instantly I was in trouble, I spun to face up stream and the bow of my boat was facing the sky. Then I disappeared into the siphon.

Gone in a matter of seconds
It is the most helpless feeling imaginable and I can only compare it to being forced through a meat grinder. I was stuck, fortunately I had an air pocket and I managed a big breath before being pushed further down. It was so tight that I couldn’t have reached my deck to pull out. So let the powers-at-be take over and relaxed my body; I pulled my knees out of my thigh hooks and the boat began to move. It was eventually pulled right off of me and the cockpit rim tore my calf muscle on the way out. The water started funnelling me after the boat and I thought I was just getting pushed under the boulder because it was getting tighter and tighter. Then suddenly I was out in open water and I surfaced to Luke’s screaming and a welcome throw bag.

In total all I lost was my helmet and an elbow pad, but luckily had everything else (including my life). Unfortunately though, that little incident terminated our trip and the Sabie was left for another day.

Stayed tuned because a month later, with a healed leg and battered confidence, I returned to the lowveld. There are lots of pictures and more awesome stories from that trip and from a region that is quite possibly the best kayaking area in the whole country - the Transkei.

Happy Paddling,

Scotty R

scotty@lifebywater.com

Posted on June 1st, 2008 by admin
Filed under: News | No Comments »