gepost door: Wilko op 26/05/04 09:34
I'll start at the beginning of the experience, pointing out what I think we could have improved at the end of this post. I know how I have dealt with it, and I'm not entirely unhappy with the results, but I would like to hear how others deal with something like this as well.
I just would appreciate some feedback from others to give me more options or maybe better ideas the next time something like this comes along.
During my recent paddling trip in Slovenia, I got to run a new (to me) river, the Sava Bohinka. Normally a nice technical class III/IV run, with not a lot of water and some boulders creating tight lines through rapids, it was flooded now.
As we put in, in the pouring rain at the put in beach, Cornelis pointed out that there was normally a six metre (20ft) wide beach here.
We decided to take things slowly, and since Cornelis was the only one who had ever paddled this creek before (a dozen or so times), and because it had a portage where several Czech paddlers had already died, I agreed.(*)
We went from eddy to eddy, Cornelis leading, me and klara following. At first the waves were pretty big, but there were relatively few holes, and despite the boils and swirling eddies, it wasn't very difficult (to Klara and me).
Then the rapids became longer and steeper, and I could see Cornelis picking some lines that made me cringe. I deliberately picked the easiest line, and Klara followed me without a problem.
As we got closer to the "Czech rock" rapid, Cornelis took the careful approach and landed us on river left. We portaged around the badly undercut rock (with a big red cross on top of it), and put in again. Here the river seemed to pick up speed, and the rapids were a little closer. Still, nothing that would usually bother me.
As we made it down a couple more rapids, I noticed Cornelis heading straight for a big breaking wave. As I looked at him, I more or less expected him to punch through it. Unfortunately, I saw the bow come up diagonally, then it disappeared, then the boat popped up straight in the air like a wet bar of soap.
Now I knew something was wrong and I accelerated towards him. As I got closer, I saw his head next to the boat. I hoped he was still in, but alas, he had bailed out. What also bothered me was that I didn't see his helmet!
As I got closer I noticed that his Prijon helmet had completely lost the outer shell, revealing only the black foam liner underneath still strapped to Cornelis' head. Oops! (**)
I turned my boat and offered him the stern, as he grabbed it, he let go of his boat (***). I got him to shore, asked him if he was okay, and told him that I would get his boat before the Lake at Bled! Then I looked upstream to see Klara and quickly went after his boat, signalling "Stop! Stop! Stop!" to Klara, hoping that she wouldn't follow me.(****)
It took me some time to catch the boat, turn it and clip the cowtail to it (*****). As I started pulling it to shore, I saw Cornelis' footbrace float by. I guessed the distance to the next rapid, and went after the footbrace (******).
As I finally got to shore, I emptied Cornelis's boat, and I noticed that he had a dry bag in the back of his boat. Thinking it would only contain his wallet, I took it out and clicked it around my PFD for safekeeping.
I wondered about the difficulty of moving around on shore, thought about how he had responded when I last saw him, and then decided to get his boat to the nearest road, considering from his response that our day of paddling was over. (*******)
I quickly picked up some white rocks and branches and created an arrow pointing up the slope, before grabbing Cornelis' kayak (********) and starting my climb up the hill. That was not easy, and I slipped and fell a couple of times before making it up to the road maybe 150 metres higher. All the time I was thinking about what I would do if I was Klara and Cornelis.
As I arrived at the road, I looked around to get a bearing on where I was. I guessed that we had maybe paddled down between half and two thirds of the distance to Cornelis' car, which meant that we should be able to get to his car in maybe half an hour to an hour.
After catching my breath, I noticed a car with Dutch registration plates driving on the road. They stopped and asked me if I needed help. I asked them if they would be so kind as to drive upstream and look for a lone (Dutch speaking) paddler whose boat I had here. They did so, and they asked me to wait there. After a while they came driving back: nobody seen. I thanked them and went down to pick up my own boat.
As I arrived there, I noticed Klara's kayak and paddle lying next to mine. I was puzzled. I shouted Klara's name, but I got no response. Then I went back to my original plan and started carrying Klara's boat and paddle up, if only to make sure she didn't paddle any more of this water on her own.(**********)
As I climbed up with her boat and paddle, I thought I heard a tune, but the sound of the water drowned out the sounds too much. It wasn't untill later that I realized that Cornelis' phone was in the dry bag I was carrying. It was easier to make it up this time, in part because of the paddle and because I had scouted sideways a bit when I came down to find an easier line up. Putting the boat on my head instead of pulling it up behind me also helped a lot. I shouted Klara a couple more times, but to no avail.
As I came down the second time, for my own boat, I kept shouting every once in a while. As I got close to my boat, I heard a reply. It was Klara, who came racing down the slope.
I shouted to her to go up, to the road, but she protested quite a bit about wanting to paddle, before moving up again.(***********)
As I neared the road, she was already up for some time. She explained how she found my boat, and how she went looking for me. I figured out that we both knew what was going on and that his oh so important bag was safe, but that Cornelis probably didn't know what the situation was. She told me that some Slovenian kayakers were going downriver trying to find the boat. I asked Klara to stay with the boats, telling her that I would walk to the car and go find Cornelis.(************)
I walked to the east, trying to figure out how to get to the little bridge at the take out point. As I noticed an old lady in the pouring rain, I approached her and asked her in my best Slovenian :"Dobre dan. Male most, Sava Bohinka?" (good day, Little bridge Sava Bohinka?). She spread her eyes wide open and hurried away. (I guess my outfit does look a bit scary at times. :-) ) A little later I tried it again, this time with a woman who stood safely out of reach of my claws on a balcony. She was very helpful by pointing me to the right road. I thanked here in mixed Slovenian/Czech: "Hwala Moc!" (thank you (slo) a lot (cz)) (*************)
About an hour after leaving Klara I reached the car. Cornelis' paddle lay next to it, so I knew he had been here. I ran downstream a bit, yelling his name, no result. I thought that if Cornelis had been so far ahead of me, that I would never catch up on foot. the only tactic that might work was to get ahead of him and then make my way upstream.(**************)
So I put a couple of bags on his seat and his paddle inside and started to drive downstream. The first times I got close to the river, I got out of the car, had a quick look and shouted Cornelis' name. Then I drove close to the river, shut the engine down and honked the horn a couple of times, listening through the open door if there was any response.
Then I did some quick calculations and took the main road to Bled. In Bled, I started to look for the river (that I thought ended in the lake: not so :-( ). I had to drive down some dirt roads, every time picking the one leading down the most, untill I finally hit the river again. Then I just started to make my way upstream carefully (with my own car I don't mind a bit of rallye driving, but this car wasn't mine, didn't have as much ground clearance nor four wheel drive). After a while I noticed a kayaker's vehicle with roofrack *and* Cornelis standing near a little bridge. The smile that suddenly appeared on his face was priceless! As I opened the door, Cornelis rushed towards me and gave me a big kiss (blush ;-)). I quickly explain the situation, with Klara waiting for us, and he thanks the Slovenians and exchanges cards (for a later thank you drink with them).
We rush back to Klara, who has started to carry all the boats and stuff to a much better loading and changing spot (smart girl :-)). After loading up and changing, we go pick up my car.
As I tie up our boats on my car, he calls his girlfriend, excitingly telling her what has happened that day. She calls all of us crazy for paddling at all. :-D
That evening Cornelis buys us dinner in Bled, and during the meal all of our ideas and plans are discussed. We definately learned a lot from this day on the river, despite having paddled together for maybe eight or nine years.
When it comes to communication, agreeing about rules and standard rescue situation behaviour for ourselves, we definately learned a lot about how each of us thinks in a situation like that. Hopefully that will be very useful in the future.
Wilko
http://wilko.webzone.ru
Some of my thoughts and ideas about he points below:
(*) In retrospect, I should have known that Cornelis doesn't like big volume water, and that I have a lot more experience than him running and leading on that kind of water. The creek and the "normal rapids" were not recognisable any more, the lines were completely different, and Cornelis' previous experience paddling it didn't give us as much of an advantage.
(**) I had bugged him about the lack of safety of that helmet for years, now he finally has to buy a new one! :-)
(***) Although he probably did the right thing from his perspective, being tired and shaken, I knew I could get him and his boat to shore in time before the next bigger rapid. Nothing bad, but a pity and (as I found out *after* getting the boat to shore), an extra complication considering his cell phone, wallet with credit cards and money and his car key were in the back of his boat.
(****)I'm sometimes an absolute dombo: I don't want anyone to go down a river on their own, I don't want someone to risk themselves for a stupid piece of gear that can be replaced and I definately don't want my girlfriend to follow me down some flooded river that neither of us has paddled before.
Again in retrospect, I should have talked to her about that, because she loves me too much and therefore wanted to follow me down, no matter what. Since I'm quite a bit better paddler than she is, that approach has gotten her hurt on the river before, when she found herself running a class V rapid blindly (making me worry even more!).
(*****)A Flip Stick is not a good rescue platform, and it's really slow. Although had I planned to take my Salto on this holiday as well, I ditched that idea just before I left home. I would have been more prepared for swimmers and rescue situations (especially on big water!), and still be able to play enough in the Flip Stick on the lower volume creeks and rivers in the area.
(******)I thought that Cornelis might have to run another part of the river before being able to get out (the shores are steep walls and full of mud and loose rubble, with trees and plants covering most of them), and I didn't want him to do so without his foot brace. I also guessed (correctly) that I could catch up with it before the next difficult part.
Doing so did make me move downriver maybe another couple of hundred metres (think yards), making it a lot harder for him to reach me on shore. Also, I should have anticipated that he didn't want to paddle any more, and I shouldn't take a risk with a swamped boat hanging from my cowtail so that this piece of foam made it to shore.
(*******)Although I guessed correctly that Cornelis had had enough, I didn't guess right when I thought that it was difficult to move around on shore. Cornelis made his way down to where I had gotten his boat out in roughly the time it took me to get to the nearest road. (big mistake on my account!)
(********)I anticipated Cornelis not paddling any more, and I deliberately left my kayak and paddle down in case I needed to get out on the water again. Unfortunately that meant that when Klara and Cornelis arrived at my kayak, they thought that I had not caught his kayak and that I had given up the chase(*********). This big mistake of anticipation of mine essentially caused Cornelis to rush down after his beloved kayak and cause the whole aftermath. Klara and Cornelis figured that I thought it to be too dangerous to paddle after the swamped boat, and that I had decided to try to keep up with it from shore (Which I considered not very likely, considering the speed of the river and the fact that they found my boat at the beginning of a quieter stretch of river).
(*********)I don't usually give up easily, as Cornelis and Klara know, having seen me paddle down a flooded river in the dusk for an hour or two to catch Cornelis' lost throwline (I retrieved that one). I also drove down all the roads we had been on before, a week before, to find three lost shoes that had fallen off my roof in rush hour traffic. They were still drying on my roof when we drove away. I finally found them all, despite Cornelis giving up hope after a while.
(**********)Yeah I know, hear who's talking. :-) She's a good paddler and she could deal with this river no problem, but I guess I find it difficult when it's about someone that I care about so much to let her take unnecessary risks.
(***********)I should learn to listen better to my fellow paddlers in those kinds of situations. My idea to solve a problem is not always the most practical or the smartest, besides I could get more info than I had before. The problem is also that I'm so used to taking control because I tend to paddle with people having little or no experience in rescue situations, that the idea of asking others about their plan rarely enters my mind. :-(
(************)Similar to the previous point: if I had let her tell her whole story, she would have told me that they had already been all the way to the car, and that Cornelis was rushing down with the Slovenians trying to catch the boat. Also, that Cornelis had gone ahead, each time scouting the rapids from shore before giving Klara the thumbs up to run it.
(*************)It's important to know a little bit more than just the basic terms in the local language if you get lost in some foreign country. I don't get lost easily, having a good sense of direction and decent navigational skills, but I might have walked a couple of kilometres more if I hadn't been able to ask for the little bridge. Next time I get to a foreign country to paddle I want to know a few words more so that this kind of thing goes easier...
(**************)I did consider the possibility that he might have been trying to hitch a ride back to his car, but I figured that I should try to locate him and show him his precious belongings instead of just waiting there for him to maybe show up at his own car again. Besides, Klara was waiting for us.
(***************)
If I had left his boat down near the river while carrying mine up, Klara and Cornelis would have found it and known that I had caught it. Then the rest of the story wouldn't have been necessary. :-(
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Dat is hem dus, ik ben benieuwd naar wat anderen van de situatie denken en wat we hier uit kunnen leren. Ik heb geprobeerd er voor mezelf (en voor ons) lessen uit te trekken, maar ik denk dat er nog wel meer lessen uit te halen zijn. Dus: barst los! :-)
Wilko
http://wilko.webzone.ru |
)
) in diverse buitenlanden en vroeger postte hij zijn tripreports altijd op rec.boats.paddle maar sinds een tijdje is zijn website eigenlijk de plek waar je die kunt vinden.
