Why Paddle

I was recently prompted to think about my motivations. Why paddle? Why make boats for other people to paddle? And where is our sport heading?

On different days I will give different answers to the first question. From a purely practical point of view, paddling is great physical exercise. Get in a kayak, any kayak, and get going. It is a good workout. However, on the complete opposite side of the same coin, paddling is a spiritual pursuit. Not so much the paddling itself, but where it takes you. There are few things in life that can make one feel so in touch with something bigger than ourselves as paddling down a river or across a big lake or out in the ocean.

In between these two opposites are a huge number of motivations to paddle. And on some days, any or all of these reasons can be equally valid. The adrenaline rush, the absolute focus when running a truly challenging rapid is hard to beat. And while it is certainly not the goal of any kayaker to have a close call, surviving a near-death experience on the river makes one feel more alive than anyone can imagine. But there is so much more. The challenge of learning new techniques. The camaraderie of fellow paddlers. The battle with the elements when the weather turns fowl. The peace of a lazy float. The earthly pleasure of mixing sun and water. The joy of sharing it with your children.  And of course, the tall stories around the campfire afterwards.

My personal favourite type of paddling is river expeditions. Doing first descents of isolated gorges filled with treacherous rapids is part of it, of course. It fulfills that primal urge to go where no one has gone before, to do something that no one has done before. But again, there is so much more. Seeing the world from the river's perspective as it winds its way to where it is destined to go, is a privilege. Seeing it from that perspective for days on end, is freedom. Therefore, a river expedition doesn't need to be of the extreme variety to feed my soul. After two days on the river, you settle in the rhythm of river life. And river life is my favourite type of life.

One of my all time favourite missions is the 5-day trip I did on the Orange River two years ago. There were no big rapids, maximum class 2. In fact, there was more flat water than anything else. And I was not paddling a kayak. Instead, I was rowing my 13 feet inflatable raft with an oar rig down the river. On the raft were my wife and our daughter, Kyla, who was a year and 4 months old at the time. Kyla had the time of her life. For 5 days, she was outside all the time, either playing on the raft, swimming in the water or playing in the sand. She loved it. And so did I. Being so close to nature, where the sun measures time and home means a flat spot to pitch a tent, is something that for many people will be an experience of a lifetime. We paddlers can fit many experiences of a lifetime into a single year.

We don't need to go on multi-day expeditions to experience the closeness of nature, though. I was reminded of that only two weeks ago, when I was surfing at our local playwave, just 15 minutes drive from my house. The water level was perfect, and I had the wave all to myself. Nobody else was around as I surfed while day changed to night. I was treated by a perfect double rainbow spanning across the river, before it made way to a most beautiful sunset. Few things beat a sunset across the water, and even more so when you witness it from your kayak.

I will obviously consider myself a whitewater kayaker more than anything else, as far as paddling is concerned. Apart from doing expeditions, I have competed in freestyle competitions and even some extreme races for years. Yet I do not dismiss other forms of the sport. On the contrary, over the years I have dabbled with most other disciplines, some with more success than others. I have raced flat-water marathons, even completed the grueling 4-day Berg River marathon when I was younger and invincible. I have raced many different river marathons, including some well-known ones like the Dusi and Fish marathons. I played canoe polo competitively for a couple of years. I raft-guided on a variety of rivers, did multi-day trips in fibreglass canoes, trained with a wildwater racer, competed in raft racing. On the ocean I have paddled with sit-on-tops, surfski's, playboats, surfkayaks, touring kayaks.

As a designer, all these exploits have given me a pretty good understanding of the interaction between boat and water. As an engineer, the challenge of creating kayaks that are better than all other kayaks is very appealing. As a South African, the goal of creating jobs for our highly unemployed workforce is a serious topic. As an entrepreneur, the start of a kayak company was the logical next step. I was extremely lucky to get partners who shared my vision.

Six years later, Fluid is an established company. We have a full range of whitewater kayaks and a growing range of recreational kayaks. We export our kayaks to all the main markets in the world, where we are highly competitive. We are constantly expanding, both at our own premises and in our market. Right now we are busy building a new R&D facility of over 200 square metres. We are positive about our future. So are we doing all this just to make money?

Well, yes and no. Yes, Fluid is a business and it has to turn a profit, otherwise it simply cannot exist. No, it's not just about making money, we want to have fun doing it, and we want thousands of people out there to share in what we have to offer. What we offer is the opportunity to get acquainted with nature from a water perspective. All the things I mentioned above about why it is great to paddle, is available to everybody out there. If you're looking for an adrenaline rush on some crazy river, or for the tranquility of a mirror-smooth lake, or just want to share some new experiences with your family or friends on the water, you can have it. Get yourself a kayak.

The sport of paddling has gone through interesting changes in the past decade or two. While the traditional competitive sides of the sport, like sprinting, slalom and wildwater racing, are pretty much stagnant, the whitewater and recreational sides had a rollercoaster ride. Whitewater went through a phase of radical kayak design changes in the late 90's, driven both by kayakers demanding new and better equipment, and by designers and manufacturers experimenting with various concepts. The sport boomed, no doubt about that. Then design changes became less radical, with improvements incremental rather than revolutionary. And in the process, we lost some people from the sport.

Does the sport have in inherent flaw? Can it not attract new paddlers if it is not reinventing itself constantly? Instead of answering this, I would rather look at it from a different angle. I think the flaw was in some of the people who flocked to the sport at the time when it went through the radical changes. If you become a paddler only to experience constant change and a constant learning curve, you are paddling for the wrong reasons. You are missing all the other great things that paddling has to offer, and you will most probably drift from sport to sport, each time getting disappointed when the learning curve flattens out and it becomes "boring".

As for the sport itself, I think whitewater kayaking is only maturing now. With a full array of boat designs available from all the manufacturers for so many different applications, and also in so many different sizes, the sport can now appeal to anyone and everyone.

Recreational paddlers have seen the light before many whitewater kayakers. They realized the truth: the important thing is to get out on the water and have fun. It is as simple as that. If that is not your first motivation to paddle, you are most probably paddling for the wrong reasons.

Celliers

Paddling In Africa

We get many emails from paddlers around the world who want more info on paddling here on our dark continent, and I keep telling them the same things. I will put some basic info in this article.

Southern Africa

Fluid is based in South Africa. All our rivers are rain dependent, we don't have snowmelt or glaciers to feed our rivers. Some of the major rivers are dam controlled, and these can normally be paddled right through the year. One of these major rivers is the Vaal, and Fluid is based in Parys, a little town right next to this river. We have a playful class 2-3 section right on our doorstep, with the infamous Gatsien wave about 10 minutes drive from the factory.

In our own country, we have the full variety from easy going class 1 to quite full on class 5. The rivers are mostly of a technical low to medium volume nature, but when we receive good rains some of them turn into real big volume monster runs. Most worthwhile whitewater sections are in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province. We also have some worthwhile creeks in Mpumalanga and Western Cape, but they don't run as often as the rivers in KZN. Logistics is fairly easy for most rivers, but sections tend to be long, and overnight and multi-day trips are very common. The lower sections of the Orange river is particularly popular for multi-day desert trips.

The major part of the region gets summer rain, with the exception of the Western Cape where the tough guys have to deal with cold, snow, hail, etc. when they want to paddle. If you want to travel all the way to South Africa to paddle (which is very worthwhile in a good rainy season), make sure you come between January and April. We're supposed to get rain from about September, but the weather is pretty confused at the moment like in many parts of the world. For the past few years the rain only really started in January.

The two major kayak schools in the country are www.whitewatertraining.co.za and www.gravity.co.za. If you plan to do some paddling in SA and don't know where to go, these guys will sort you out.

There are also a bunch of commercial rafting companies spread across the country. Most of them will always be willing to have a kayaker tag along on a trip in return for some safety kayaking. To get hold of rafting companies, contact one of the kayak schools mentioned below, who will point you in the right direction. Many of these commercial operators also offer a variety of other outdoor activities, making SA a worthwhile destination for people looking for an adventurous holiday.

Our neighboring countries, specifically Swaziland and Lesotho, have some really good runs that have been explored already. There are still a few first descents waiting though.

We obviously have a long coastline with many well-known surfspots. Most paddlers in SA spend some time on the ocean waves too.

For more info on the rivers in our part of the world, get a copy of my book "Run the Rivers of Southern Africa". About 140 different runs are described in the book. The introduction chapter is quite lengthy, with lots of additional information about paddling in SA. It's available at all kayak shops in South Africa as well as Exclusive Books. If you can't get hold of a copy, contact us at the factory and we'll sort you out.

Zambezi in Zambia/Zimbabwe

Further north, we have the Batoka gorge of the Zambezi river, right below Victoria Falls. This is close enough for South African paddlers to drive to. It's about 14 hours drive from Johannesburg, with two borders to cross if you want to stay on the Zambian side. The town Vic Falls on the Zimbabwean side used to be the hub of activity around the Batoka gorge. The political turmoil in Zimbabwe has changed things though, and most people prefer to stay in Livingstone on the Zambian side, although it's definitely still a good option to stay in Vic Falls town. There are international airports in both Livingstone and Vic Falls. From other continents the flights to these destinations normally work out cheaper via Johannesburg in South Africa.

For accommodation I can highly recommend the Zambezi Waterfront, next to the Zambezi river, upstream of Vic Falls and just outside the town Livingstone. Their campsite is really good, and you can sit on the veranda at sunset, looking at the mist of the falls and spot some hippos playing around. Their website is www.zambezi.com. Fawlty Towers Lodge right inside Livingstone is also very popular with kayakers. There are a couple of nice restaurants to choose from, both at the lodges and in town. You have to do yourself a favour if you go up there and get some pizza at the Funky Monkey.

As for the paddling, who doesn't know about the mighty Zambezi? It is one of the original high profile big volume rivers that are often paddled, and the claim "best one day whitewater rafting in the world" is well justified. There are some really good rapids to run, and a couple of awesome playspots, especially at rapids #2, #3, and #12B at low water levels, which is basically from Sept to Jan. The most popular time for kayakers to visit the Zam is from Oct to Dec. During high water season most rapids wash out a bit and the super sized holes (no, McDonalds was not involved) disappear, but the water in general becomes more confusing and the flat water becomes quite dangerous, with massive boils and whirlpools. The barrel wave at #11, made famous by Steve Fisher, only works for a week or two every year at high water, so don't expect to see this wave if you don't plan your trip for that specifically.

Sitting down at the boiling pot and looking up at the waterfall before you paddle down to the first rapid is truly an amazing experience. There are also a variety of other activities on offer in the area, like bungee jumping, canoe trips and booze cruises upstream of the Falls, microlight flights, game drives, etc.

There are a bunch of rafting companies that might allow you to join them on a trip with your kayak, normally at a high fee, but your best bet is to get in contact with www.bunduadventures.com or www.thezambezi.com. They are fully jacked up with everything that you will need to make your trip worthwhile. They can arrange shuttles for you, accommodation, permits, and most importantly, guide you down the river. Contact them for sure if you plan to go paddle the Zambezi.

Nile in Uganda

The Nile river in Uganda has become one of the hotspots in the international paddling world. It doesn't have the deep gorge of the Zambezi, but what it does have is a bigger variety of rapids to run and more playspots, many of which can be accessed easily without paddling a long section of the river. The Nile is a really wide river and channels between a maze of islands. There is everything from easy class 3 big volume rapids to technical class 5 rapids, depending on which channels you take. The islands are thickly overgrown and scouting is very difficult. Definitely make use of a guide the first few times you run this river.

The water on this popular section of the Nile is dam controlled, ensuring a good level for paddling right through the year.

The two best playspots are Nile Special and Malalu. The annual Nile Festival takes place at these spots, and the biggest air possible is thrown here by the local and international paddlers who attend this growing Fest. It is sure to become one of the premier events on the international calendar. Some of the local paddlers are extremely talented and a few have already made their mark as big air experts.

There is some major construction going on at the Nile right now, and when completed a couple of rapids will be drowned. But the majority of good stuff will still be there, so don't let the talks of dams put you off visiting the Nile.

If you plan to visit the Nile, definitely get in contact with Jamie Simpson of www.kayakthenile.com. He is your one stop shop for paddling in Uganda, and will make all arrangements necessary, as well as guide you down the river. As for accommodation, the most popular place to stay is at the camp of Nile River Explorers (www.raftafrica.com), who are very friendly towards kayakers. Fly to Entebbe, Kampala, if you want to visit this amazing country.

Kayak the Nile is sponsored by Fluid, and a fleet of Fluid kayaks are available for demo or rent.

Other rivers

There are some big rivers in a few countries waiting for first descents, and also a good couple that have only been paddled once or twice. Paddling in most African countries is guaranteed to provide epics in some form or another, and it can start the moment you land at the airport. Remember that most of Africa is third world territory, although some of the major cities are very modern. Public transport is not reliable and can be somewhat dangerous, but if you have patience and a good sense of humour you might just enjoy the ride.

Kenya is a new whitewater mecca that is starting to be opened up now. Check out Savage Wilderness Safaris at www.whitewaterkenya.com. The White and Blue Nile have both been paddled from source to sea fairly recently. These expeditions are well documented, but nothing stops you from following in their footsteps if you have the guts. Ethiopia has some amazing rivers, and a few of them are well described by Richard Bangs in his books. The Kafue in Zambia will scare you if you're not competent enough. Angola is a paddlers paradise waiting to be discovered, according to the guys who've flown over it. Madagascar, a big island off Africa's east coast, has creeks to write home about. Some of these have been paddled, but not many.

Many countries with world class whitewater have only recently recovered from civil wars. As a result, very little info is available on the rivers. All we know is that countries with mountains and high rainfall is bound to have good whitewater, and teams of expedition paddlers are slowly penetrating these places. Just be careful of landmines, hippos, crocodiles, malaria and men with AK47's.

Sorry if it seems like I want to scare paddlers off from coming here. The truth is, we want to do those first descents ourselves!

Cheers, Celliers

To Paddle Solo or Not To Paddle At All

To paddle solo or not to paddle at all, that is the question.

If you need someone else to justify solo paddling for you, then you are probably not the type to be paddling alone anyway. The following thoughts are not intended to persuade anyone to do what they don't feel is right. I write this only as some kind of answer for the fuss that is made whenever someone "catches" me after a solo run on one of my home rivers.

I got a beautiful new kayak a few weeks ago coincidentally called a Solo ( nice name, thanks Celliers) and inside were a list of safety instructions.

Safety instruction number 10. "Never paddle alone. If you don't have friends, work on your social skills first". Paddling with a buddy is regarded as one of the golden rules of paddling. Personally I don't think it's the be all and end all of safety.

We have all heard that you should never paddle alone. Why? Camaraderie is one of the great things in kayaking but it certainly is not the only thing. Without a doubt I experience a much closer connection with nature when I am alone on a river, without talking and with no eyes on you, it offers you a rare chance to just be you. A much more practical reason for paddling alone is the problem of finding someone to paddle with, when you have the time and inclination, especially on short notice. If no one can be found, should you then not paddle?

No doubt solo paddling involves "more" risk but how much more? Is it really as terminal as kayaking folk will have us believe? Saying people should not kayak solo makes as much sense as saying no one should paddle class 5. Class 4 is so much safer so lets all stick to it. I believe that on a scale of danger, running solo below your skill level is still a very acceptable risk. I am not talking about running class 5 solo, there can be no doubt that when working with such small margins of error, having another person there when the shit hits the fan, could be lifesaving. What I would like to propose however is that paddling your local by yourself is not really all that more dangerous.

Its not a black and white issue, and you might have to change your angle of attack, so lets have a look at some of the factors that should be considered. Paddling alone is considered dangerous because:

1. There is no one there to throw you a bag, if you end up in a terminal hole.

Terminal holes are rare, if you are going to solo a river with one, and there is a chance of going near it, portage.

2. If you hit your head and become unconscious, you will die.

Unless it’s favourable conditions, very few kayakers are good enough to get to you quickly enough to get you upright and to the bank in time to save you. Hitting your head that hard is rare and even if you are with another kayaker your chances of survival are slim. You are probable going to die, alone or not.

3. No one to pull you to the side after a swim.

If you're a good swimmer you should be able to get yourself to the side. In 11 years of kayaking I have never had a swim, where I have not been able to get myself to the bank. Not saying it can’t happen, just that you would have to be extremely unlucky to have such a nasty on your local at precisely the time when you're soloing.

4. If you swim you will lose equipment.

Yes you probably will and may it be a lesson to you not to swim next time. Great lesson to hold onto your paddle. Swimming costs gear in most cases, luckily on your local, you have better chance of finding it later.

5. If you get pinned you will have to sort it out yourself.

It’s your local run, avoid possible pinning spots as if your life depended upon it.

For me it comes down to the question. What is more dangerous? A paddler, paddling a class below his skill level solo or a class above with company? I propose it is the latter. With both having there time and place.

To sum up, solo paddling is more dangerous, but if done smartly only by a little and for the extra risk you take you can have the following advantages.

1. Go boating when you feel like it, at a moments notice.

2. You can follow your own rhythm.

3. A closer connection with nature.

4. Added focus and concentration, making your local more exciting again.

5. Get some extra exercise running or biking the shuttle

Concentrate, take a bit more care, analyze the risk and know your own skill level, but by all means paddle when you feel like it, alone or not. Ultimately where, with whom and how much risk you take is up to you. All I hope is that at least you will give the issue some though before you go repeating the mantra "never paddle alone".

By Hendri Coetzee

Dealing with Fear

I was inspired by the story of a kayak friend of mine, he had been struggling with confidence and even though a capable boater, he was about to give it up. It just wasn’t fun anymore, the fear had become too uncomfortable.

I was guiding him for a few days on the Nile. He had done the easier rapids and had done well but did take one swim and it bothered him, he didn’t trust his roll and therefore being upside down was no fun.

We were heading down the Silverback section of the Nile (a section where some of the bigger rapids are) for his first time and I could tell he was nervous; half way down the first flat pool he was ready to pull out. I knew he really needed to do this. If he pulled out now his kayaking would be over, the consequences of giving in to the fear would have been far more unpleasant to face than anything downstream, and he knew it. It only took a few words to remind him of that, rationally he knew it, but fear was working on the unconscious level.

I respect courage and there is no courage greater than when it is in the face of a full on irrational fear assault. It is easy for the 18 year old to huck his kayak off a 20m waterfall, if he had little fear to begin with.

The greater the fear the greater the courage needed to overcome it.

He went over in the first rapid and hit rock; I thought he would bail out, but he didn’t. He made it through the next one upright and let out a rebel yell of delight.

He proceeded to take a swim in the next rapid. He got himself in his boat and kept going. In the last rapid he did several combat rolls and finally made it up.

He had battled and had won. It wasn’t pretty but he had survived. For some people this might have been enough. However he still didn’t know for sure that he could. If we had stopped there, doubt would have been able to remain and he knew it. So he came back in the afternoon and did it all again. This time he was more relaxed and paddled more to his capabilities and styled it.

I have seen few things make a person as happy as when they have fought their demons and beaten them, it is an inner satisfaction that suddenly makes everything seem better and more hopeful. It leaves you feeling more powerful and makes the other challenges in your life seem smaller.

It was inspirational; he had turned fear into courage, and potential defeat into victory. It all could have been so different if he had pulled out on that flat stretch.

In my lifestyle I have had to deal with fear often, my own and other’s.

Here are some of my thoughts on the demon.

Fear has many forms, and some of them are very healthy, with a life preservation function. There is however a few forms that are nothing but bad news and non more so than irrational fear.

Overcoming irrational fear is not an easy path but as the Buddhist say, its only when you realize that life is hard that life becomes easy.

Sport psychology has infiltrated everyday culture and we have all heard the world’s top athletes and coaches say it time and again. “Winning is a habit.” And so is giving up, and so is giving in to your fear. Every time your irrational fear gets the better of you, you become weaker, with every victory you have over your fear, you become stronger.

Fear will stop you from becoming all you can be, whether its fear of failure or fear of the unknown. Fear will ruin your life if you let it, it can be debilitating and, without you knowing it, it will spread into other areas of your life, polluting your dreams and hopes.

It’s a battle that you will never win completely, irrational fear will keep popping its ugly head up. But if you keep knocking it down it will never grow strong enough to threaten you. You will end up fighting the battles in your conscious mind on the plains of actual risk where they should be fought, not in the shadows of your subconscious mind were irrational fear rules. Fear is not fought once and beaten, it is fought every day and weakened.

Fear should be looked at as your tennis partner, you will play your weekly games, some you will win, some you will loose. You will know her by her real name and will see her for what she really is. Good and bad. Nothing but an instinctual, mental reaction to a situation.

Realizing that fear is by itself just an emotion and nothing more is the first step in gaining control over it.

Irrational fear disguises itself so that you will not recognize it. Its favorite disguise is that of a warning system, it makes you think that it is acting in your own best interest. It knows that this is a system that you will not easily override.

How do you distinguish between irrational and rational fear? Here are a few of my own. You might have your own disguises for irrational fear.

Irrational fear

1: The aversion is immediate and does not want any discussion. If it rational it will not mind being examined.

2: An emotional reaction that is out of proportion to the situation.

3: The best excuse you can come up with is “I just don’t want to”.

Desensitization is one theory for overcoming your fears. Simply put, it means losing your fear by slowly, over a period of time, being in contact with the object or activity and so slowly realizing that it is actually not so bad.

By ingesting small amounts at a time your system gradually becomes accustomed to it. Nothing new here, but lets look at the underlying mechanism in this theory.

I believe that by fighting the battle against your fear in small battles you actually become better at battling your fear. It’s not the object you become accustomed to; it is the fear you become accustomed to. You start to realize that the feeling cannot kill you, cannot hurt you and can be overridden. It is just a feeling after all.

The exposing of fear might not be everyone’s life goal, but we can all profit from not being slaves to our unconscious and what better place to start battling the demon than in your kayaking?

Kayaking is one of the great head games. When things go wrong you have to deal with oxygen starvation, the brains most precious resource and boy, the brain gets worried when it’s not getting it. And it will let you know about it through the panic response.

Fear leads to panic, and panic kills. When boating at the edge of your ability, you will be scared, no way around that, it’s the way it should be. The trick is to keep that fear from becoming panic. And to be able to control fear, you have to practice being scared. Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?

No one likes to be scared. So what I propose is to be just a little scared everyday of something. Identify some irrational fears in your life and start to terrorize yourself about it. You will become stronger and happier for it.

If you are uncomfortable underwater, then spend more time underwater, see how long you can hold out before rolling up and try to extend this period.

The alarm bell start to go off as soon as you go over in the early stages, then after a bit of practice and a couple of hundred rolls to show the brain that there is hope it will give you more and more time before it demands to breath. The more confidence you have in your roll the more time you can spend upside down.

Even the best kayakers go upside down, there is no avoiding it, so if you are scared of being upside down, don’t try to stay upright, try to stay upside down as much as possible. You will enjoy your kayaking more.

Find a feature that isn’t lethal but that scares you a little and paddle into it on purpose. Have your safety setup and just go in there and try to relax. Take the beat down, or the swim and you will see that it isn’t so bad, more importantly you would have faced that fear.

You will come out stronger, be able to enjoy more, do more and be fear-less.

Hendri Coetzee