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gepost door: Wilko op 29/10/04 14:16 |
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"Paddling with hurdles" (Wilko Sized Trip Report).
Rio Botic, CZ, October 2004.
Being invited by Czech paddlers to run class I stuff always promises
a special experience. "Sure, it's only class I, what is he talking
about?" I can hear some of you think. Well, that's what I thought at
first as well...
The Botic (that's pronounced "Boatitsj") is a little stream that is
channelised for most of the part that runs through the city of
Prague. The stretch that is boatable, during the official release
of water from a reservoir only once a year, is maybe 12 kilometres
(~7,5 miles) long. It ends in the Vltava (Moldau) river, near the
centre of Prague.
For maybe half of its distance, the creek runs through a concrete
and brick bed. The water is so dirty that it's impossible to see
anything below the surface, the dark grey flow into the Vltava
makes many people shake their heads in disgust. And that's only
the beginning... :-)
---the trip---
After we unloaded the boats, along the overcrowded road that goes
into the park, we approached the officials guarding the entrance
to the put in. They smiled as they recognised my girlfriend. They
are members of the paddling club she belonged to for a long time.
The procedure here is so typically Czech, I'll have to describe
it in more detail. First, it involves putting a coin in a small
garden gnome. Not just anywhere, no, the gnome is positioned in
a compromising position that includes having his drawers down,
the coin goes in the proper, ehm "fold", just above his dropped
pants... :-)
Then you aquire the official red stamp, which is routinely put on
when and where you don't expect it. Martin took his stamp on his
forehead, Klara saw the stamp coming, but with help of Martin and
Honza, also got hers on her forehead. I obviously looked like too
much of a challenge to try to subdue, and with a disappointed
look the official gave me my stamp on the back of my hand.
After the stamp, you have to be "desinfected". This is done by
ways of a little sprayer with some horribly tasting typical Czech
alcoholic beverage that you get sprayed in your mouth. Brrrr!
If you survived the "desinfection", you get the official "Rio
Botic Diploma". This is a little green paper with official looking
stamp (Which for some reason had a striking resemblance to the one
on my band), signature, cartoon and other nonsense on one side,
and a list with some of the diseases that are known to populate
this stream on the other side. This includes leptospirosis,
giardia, hepatitis A, and several others that I have forgotten
right now.
Walking down to the put in, one notices a small bridge, with a
band playing Czech folk music next to it (I involuntarily got
the eerie image in my mind of the orkestra playing near the
gas chambres in some of the concentration camps... :-( ).
Upstream of the bridge is a small pond, upstream of which one can
see the dam that the water is released from. This pond empties
into a small semicircular wall with a gap in it, which itself feeds
into a pipe. Considering that this pipe is maybe one metre (~3,3 ft)
in diameter, and filled to maybe two thirds of its height with
water, it didn't look very inviting. With the pipe being maybe 10
metres (30ft) long, that also didn't help...
I was curious to see someone paddle it, but no volunteers were
available yet. Martin has broken a couple of paddles going into
this pipe in the last couple of years, so I was a bit hesitant
to try it with my relatively new paddle (as a precaution, I had
also brought my handpaddles :-) ).
We walked back up and changed. As we walked down, there were
already some paddlers running the pipe. About half of them made
it down upright. Hmmm, that didn't look very promising!
Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the water was flowing from
the gap in the wall into the pipe at an angle, causing a kind of
corkscrew motion of the water inside the pipe. That seemed
designed especially to flip unsuspecting paddlers. :-)
After seeing a couple of C-boaters ome down the pipe upright, I
started to look at what could be done inside the pipe to prevent
flipping. A low brace to the side seemed out of the question, due
to the limited room to manouvre, but maybe a brace behind me...
Martin setup to run, and handed me his camera. He put his boat on
the concrete rim of the pond, right next to the railing, and
climbed in. As he launched, I was surprised by the big wave his
sideways landing caused...
He played around in the pond for a while, before heading for the
pipe. We joked about seeing his paddle for the last time. He got
over the drop into the pipe cleanly, but then he disappeared
from sight. I missed his exit of the pipe.
Honza and I were looking at a couple more runs down the pipe, but
it didn't look very smooth, several boaters came out of the
bottom of the pipe upside-down. A C-2 ran it clean though.
By now I had noticed several people looking at a big white
cardboard plate, on which the hazards were displayed very
graphically. It listed all kinds of things like dark tunnels,
the pipe, tree strainers, holes, drops, weirs, sharp curves,
but also turds, rats, all kinds of diseases, biting dogs on
shore and what more.
Honza and I pushed our boats under the railing and got in. As I
launched sideways off the concrete rim, I suddenly realized why
Martin's launch caused such a big wave: it was no deeper than
20 cm (8")!
I landed well, but hitting my paddle on the bottom surprised me.
After seeing someone else go into the pipe, I lined up and went
down. While I went over the edge down into the pipe, I realised
that bending forwards wasn't going to be comfortable (I'm a bit
taller than the average Czech paddler). I quickly leaned
backwards instead and put my paddle over my right shoulder to
brace. That approach worked very well, and I went through the
entire pipe without a problem. Then I hit the hole at the bottom
of the pipe, did a nice unintended but controlled stern squirt
and landed in the eddy on river right.
Shortly afterwards Honza also approached upright. While we waited
for Klara to put in below the tunnel, Martin went to run the pipe
a second time. Again, to our amazement, he managed to keep
his paddle intact. :-)
We were ready to go, and it was about time! The creek was slowly
filling up with Czech rafts, glass kayaks, C-2's and a whole herd
of plastic open canoes, with all available eddies as well as
places not suitable for stopping getting filled with boats. Some
wore swimming vests, others only a raincoat, some of the paddlers
wore helmets with everything from carnival, construction, biking
and climbing helmets to real whitewater helmets being worn.
We made our way down through the gathered mass of floating debris,
and immediately got to witness the inexperience of some of the
participants. Many of these people only paddled the Vltava before,
a wide flatwater river where in my impression the most often
displayed paddling technique is drunk floating.
After the first couple of strokes, a couple paddling a canoe more
or less perpendicular to the current came close to a branch, and
the passenger started to lean away from it... upstream. The boat
sank right away.
A father with his young son in another canoe made it all the way
around the first bend, before heading straight towards an
overhanging bush. The son managed to lean forwards low enough,
the father tried to lean away from it, and he made an almost
complete backwards somersault as the branches hit him. He fell
over the left gunnel into the creek.
Klara found that her backstrap was acting up, so we got out and
looked at what had happened. The connecting pin had popped out of
the strap connecting the ratchet and the backband on one side. I
wanted to connect the two with a tiewrap I have with me for those
kinds of incidents, but Klara preferred to just stuff a couple of
throwbags and a bottle behind the backband instead.
We got back in again and tried to catch up with Honza and Martin.
A dozen or so canoes had overtaken us in the meantime, and as we
rounded a couple more bends, we heard some yelling. A group of
people was standing on the shores, with canoes lined along both
banks, mostly filled with people trying to hold on to grass,
tiny branches and so on.
A little further downstream we noticed a log blocking the creek.
It was barely sticking out of the water, but they had attached a
couple of lines to it and were trying to pull it out. As we
watched, a canoe tried to run over the tree, got stuck, was
pulled over the tree and flipped in the first (rather sharp)
bend just below the tree. Since the creek behind us was filling
with ever more badly controlled canoes and Czech style rafts, I
figured that boofing it was the easiest approach here. When I
noticed that the group on shore trying to pull the tree out gave
up for a moment, I paddled hard and boofed the tree. Klara, Honza
and Martin followed. When we arrived in an eddy below, Klara told
me that a canoe was stuck under the tree. It wasn't visible, but
at least it explained why they went through all the trouble to
get the tree out.
Due to the traffic jam behind us, the creek seemed quieter all of
a sudden. We enjoyed the relative silence and the scenery. Martin
pointed to a pub he had helped build, only to realise that it was
another house. Later we saw the pub he had meant. All of the
meandering the creek did sure didn't help with the orientation. :-)
We reached a weir, and scratched down the very shallow slope of
it. A while later, another weir loomed up. This time it had a
little hole at the bottom. I tried to surf it, but quickly washed
off. A Czech paddler in a longer boat also tried to catch a ride,
he also gave up very soon.
We noticed that both banks were showing the marks of a recent high
water. Klara knew for sure that there hadn't been any rain to
speak of in recent weeks. Strange...
A little bit lower we saw the cause of that high water mark. There
was a dam there, complete with sluicegate. The sluice was open.
Shortly after we stopped in an eddy, Martin peeled out and went
for the sluicegate. Shortly afterwards, he went over the edge. We
saw his boat kick up, and then his only still visible paddle blade
started to show erratic movements... He was obviously getting
thoroughly thrashed!
I was surprised, because I thought that they had run this sluice a
bazillion times before, threfore knowing if it was tricky or not.
After a while, someone threw Martin a line and he was pulled out,
still in his boat. Honza ran the drop and he seemed to have no
problem. I foolishly followed. Coming down over the drop, I
immediately realized my mistake... too late!
The drop hid the three metre (10ft) long towback between two long
concrete walls immediately below the rather violent hole. The high
smooth walls left no place to hold onto, and the 2,5 metre (~8,5')
width and considerable depth meant that you could get recirculated
indefinately there.
With my very short and low volume boat I boofed, and immediately
paddled like crazy but it was to no avail. I was sucked in
backwards and immediately did an ender followed by some serious
trashing. Every time I setup, my paddle or my boat was banged
against the concrete. When I tried to move the paddle to the
opposite side of my boat, I hit concrete...
Realising that there was no way to escape that towback without
catching a line, and being unable to see anything, I bailed out.
I tried to immediately swim downstream, but it was to no avail,
the hydrolic was way too strong and I got sucked down. The water
was heavily laden with black silt, so I couldn't see a thing
under water.
When I got my head up above the surface again, a line was thrown,
but I couldn't catch it. I tried to stand, but it was too deep.
Then I felt concrete under my foot and used it to launch myself
on top of my boat, figuring that the rear end with the air bags
would keep me a lot higher out of the water than my swimming vest
alone. I made eye-contact with a guy on shore who had just hauled
in his line. When the line was thrown again, grabbed it. As I got
further from the hole, I could suddenly feel concrete under my
feet again. It became obvious that he couldn't pull both me and
my boat out, so I let go of my boat.
Bummer, it had been quite some time since I had last bailed out,
and I hadn't had to leave this boat involuntarily yet. Oh well...
I was okay, I didn't feel too bad about it and from the eddy I
climbed onto the concrete wall. Unfortunately my boat stayed in
the hole, doing some interesting rodeo moves. I thought about
wading back in, attached to a line to my cowtail, but the idea
of going into the murky greyish churning soup having to trust
a complete stranger to not let me get in more trouble than we
both could handle didn't appeal to me.
My rescuer left, and I was left standing. Then my boat
disappeared completely and for a moment I wondered if it had
gotten stuck in something below the surface. Minutes went by,
and then it came back up again. It took quite some time before
it finally washed out. Shortly afterwards I got confirmation
from Martin and Honza that my boat and paddle were on the
opposite shore.
As I was standing there, another boater came down and immediately
got in trouble. Luckily I was still wearing my waist worn
Salamander bag, which I could use right away. Funny how such a
small habit that I have persisted in for years without needing it
would prove so useful now. After I fished him out, the party
really started. A couple of times two boaters hung in there at
the same time, with one swimming with his boat and another
landing on top of him and flipping. Rafts, open canoes and long
glassfiber boats came down.
Every time I felt like leaving, yet another boater got in trouble.
Very few made it through upright and intact. Sometimes I managed
to get someone out who was still in his boat, but having a boat
that is slightly longer than the sluice is wide means that it
can get stuck if you pull on the wrong side. Some guys took a
long time being pulled out, and some boats also stayed in there
for quite some time.
I pulled out a guy paddling a long white glassfiber boat, who just
flipped before I could get a grip on the smooth nose of his boat.
He fell out and grabbed the end of his upturned (and at least 4
metres (13,5ft) long) kayak. I had to walk with the end of his
boat in my hand to the end of the wall I was standing on, before
the backtow released him. Alas his boat didn't have floatation,
so it quickly filled. As I got to the end of the wall, I could
feel that it started to crack. I gave him one last yank in the
downstream direction so that he wouldn't be sucked back in, then
let the boat go.
A canoe with a young boy and a father (who made up for the lack
of skill and common sense by sheer bravado) came down and the
father fell out right away. Luckily the boy got out without
swimming because the now empty boat kept going. The father met
up with his son soon enough, after he caught onto the idea of
using the line thrown to him.
A whitewater kayaker lost his paddle in the struggle, so after
I hauled him out, I offered him my hand paddles. He accepted,
but before he got to use them, a buddy of his told him that
they had found his paddle a bit further downstream. :-)
Another boater in a Salto bumped into the boat that was still
stuck in the hole and swam. The Salto stayed in the hole long
enough to lose the floatation bags. The older paddler signalled
me to tie my throwline to his swimming vest and lower him in. I
used the carabiner instead and slowly helped him back in. He
did get his boat out, but not before yet another boater came
down and got in trouble. What a chaos!
I pulled in the older paddler and stood there looking at a guy
doing some serious bracing. I wasn't sure if he wanted the line
right there and then, because having the wrong timing could get
him in more trouble if the line tangled with his paddle.
I waited untill he made eye contact so ask (in a loud voice)
"line?". He started to yell something in Czech I didn't
understand. The people on shore also yelled something, but the
language barrier was too big. I threw the line, but by grabbing
the line, he had to let go of his paddle. I tried to pull him
in, but he was hanging from my line, and he kept his boat
perpendicular to the current, which flowed back upstream
strongly, pulling the boat in. Finally I pulled harder and
he had to let go with one hand. I gave him time to get his
other hand on the line, but figured that I could either get
him or his boat out, but not both... He bailed out and I got
him to shore. He was grumbling. Oh well, you can't please
everyone. :-(
Another canoe came down, this time I managed to grab the front
grab loop before they were sucked back in. Alas the guy in the
back lost his balance, falling in backwards and swamping the
back of the boat. He quickly grabbed the end and hung on, and
now I was faced with a swamped canoe (what floatation??), two
panicky guys and more weight than I could move. I put a foot
against the dam wall and tried to pull from a more or less
horizontal position, but I couldn't get the canoe far away
downstream to get them out of the tow. After a couple of tries
it started to move, and I finally got them free. My muscles
were hurting by now.
I had had enough, and Klara got worried that I might stay
there all day, untill after the water went down. I felt a bit
guilty, seeing how I had seen maybe twenty people get in
trouble there out of two dozen trying to run it, and how I
had seen no-one else carrying a throwline, among the dozens
of people carrying around the dam and the dozens more
watching the carnage.
Martin got my boat and paddle and handed them to me across
the sluice. I was glad to see that the handpaddles were
still clipped to the back of the seat with a carabiner
(although they had been wedged between the hull and the
floatation bags, originally, they were on the seat now).
Even the sponge I usually stuff under a string in the bottle
holder was still there.
I got in my kayak while sitting on the wall with some
onlookers smiling at me, making remarks about how I would be
getting into some interesting trouble when landing. I took
off and smoothly landed, paddling away to an eddy further
downstream. What an experience!
We met one of the organisers standing near the next eddy,
who was taking pictures of the carnage in the sluice. I had
mixed feelings about that. This sluice was a virtual
deathtrap, with no-one warning the herds of unknowing and
inexperienced boaters coming down. It wasn't untill now that
Martin explained that this was a brand new dam and sluice
and that they had never padled it before. Hmmmm...
We left, paddling past a golf course, under some fallen
trees and past several flipped canoes. Under some of the
bridges it was obvious that a homeless person was spending
the night there. After a while we reached a dark tunnel. I
asked Honza if that was the tunnel they had talked about.
Nah, this one wasn't so long, he said. Still, he stopped
and took out his LED-lamp. Unfortunately we couldn't stop
any more, due to the lack of eddies in this channelised
section of the Botic.
Maybe the tunnel was not that long by his standards, but
shortly afterwards it went around a bend, and I found out
what paddling in complete darkness is all about. Eek!
Even worse, several of the canoes and so that went in there
also didn't have lights either, so I got bumped into from
time to time. Great experience, when you're already feeling
vulnerable, trying to do a balancing act when not being
able to rely on your vision. Stuff growing on shallower
parts made it even more interesting, when one side of the
boat suddenly hit something shallow in the dark.
Seeing the end of the tunnel was very relieving. We stopped
to stretch our legs and see the people still being left on
the river. A couple of whitewater kayakers had stopped
across the creek from us, one of them being the old guy in
the Salto I had fished out. As we paddled further down, the
speed of the creek picked up. It was actually fun to get
some speed for a change. Every once in a while I saw people
smile and flash a look of recognition. Sometimes I
recognised them as being the slightly less wet version of
someone I had hanging from the end of my rope before. :-)
I didn't see the guy who had pulled me out though... I
would like to thank him for pulling my sorry *ss out of
that hole.
We arrived at a straight section of the creek, and in the
distance loomed a bridge. Several canoes were being pulled
to shore. As we got close, I understood why. In the distance
a horizon line loomed. I asked Honza what to expect, he
laughed and indicated that you needed some speed. Seeing
Honza accellerate, I also gained speed and boofed. Klara
obviously wanted to have a look first, but I didn't see
any nice eddies and therefore just decided to go for it.
The drop was higher than I had expected, maybe only 1,5 or
2 metres (5 to 7 ft), but enough to make me wonder where
that had come from on this tiny creek!
The paddling was not very nice, with smelly sewer pipes
spreading penetrating odours and the industry nearby not
making the scenery very nice. In the distance we saw a lot
of canoes and people on shore, and the bridge being full
of onlookers. I asked Honza what to expect, and he said
that it wasn't very high. I was more skeptical, due to the
surprising height (for this creek's standards) I had seen
before. Still, it couldn't be that high... ...could it?
As I got closer, I was expecting the river bed to lower,
but it remained more or less level. Hmmmm... the drop was
indeed higher than I had expected and there was a angled
current feeding back into the hole at the bottom. I boofed
and paddled hard but it wasn't hard to get away. Klara and
Honza also were surprised by the height...
After we gathered, it became clear that we were near the
end. A big dark tunnel lay ahead. As we got in, Honza
switched on his light. I asked Klara to please not go too
fast, but they quickly gained speed, and I was not able to
catch up. The mass of boats was surprising, and maybe even
a bit frightening. Every once in a while I would catch some
light, and sometimes someone came up behind me with a dimmed
light that made me see a little bit for a second or so.
I quickly lost that light due to the speed difference though.
Although I tried hard to stay in the middle of the current,
being bumped into by canoes and sometimes catching someone's
blade, I slowly moved away from the middle. It wasn't untill
I bumped my paddle into the left wall of the tunnel that I
realized how much I had moved. Guessing relative distances
from shore in the dark while moving downstream and going
around bends is harder than I thought.
I remembered that Honza told me that there is a little drop
somewhere in the tunnel. I had no way of knowing how high,
wide or even where it would be. When I could see further
ahead for a moment due to overtaking canoeists with a light,
I saw that drop. It was narrower and I almost ran aground
before seeing the water end in front of me. A quick stroke
or two got me back in the current, even though I did some
scratching across shallow concrete. It took me some time
to calm down again...
I got bumped into by a boat a couple of times, despite my
saying "Hey!" and me trying to get out of the way. I quickly
grabbed my camera and took a picture over my shoulder.
That ended the bumping. :-)
After what seemed like ages, there was light again. After
a bend, a curved arch with lots of people showed up. Strangely,
after that arch (which was the higher round ceiling of the part
of the tunnel we were still in), there was a straight roofed
part of the tunnel. I was very glad to see daylight again, as I
pulled into the big eddy called the Vltava river. :-)
We played a bit, and I rolled to get some of the dirt off me.
Honza got out and called Lada to ome pick us up. While we waited
for her, we saw a lot of people coming down out of the tunnel.
One of the couples paddling a canoe flipped right as they
entered the Vltava. A woman next to us started taking pictures.
It turned out to be her daughter and her friend. :-)
What a adventure, and that on a class I stream... :-)
Wilko
Pictures from the Rio Botic two years ago, the first one in
the first part of the gallery is not clickable... And it loads
slowly!
http://sweb.cz/vavrinecak2002/botic/page_01.htmhttp://sweb.cz/vavrinecak2002/botic/page_02.htm
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