Kayakin´Tom: March 2015

Another great trip to paddlers paradise...

One of the amazing sunsets at Nile Special

At first it looked like this whole journey to Uganda was off to a bad start: a call from Turkish Airlines that my flight was cancelled due to bad weather conditions! Luckily I just had to take an earlier flight - what turned out to be good: take off was delayed over an hour and the landing at Istanbul was one of the scariest I´ve ever had!

The connecting flight to Entebbe was exhausting because of a small kid just on the other side of the aisle who screamed almost the whole flight- I was trying to get some sleep (which was hard even with earplugs) - but imagine the mother...

Finally arriving in Uganda at 4am everything went perfectly: the taxi driver was waiting for me and in no time we hit the road. Except for a short stop to get something to drink the drive was OK. I kept falling asleep and we reached the Hairy Lemon in the shortest time ever (due to the non existent traffic). I arrived in time for an early morning cup of tea and to a warm welcome by Anita, Grace and a little later Paul. Breakfast was delicious as usual - ripe fruit and eggs and freshly baked bread - I especially love the pineapples or ananas, as they are called in Uganda!

Ananas as they are called in Uganda

Some more Ananas (pictures taken at the Soft Power Health Clinic, Bujagali)

There already was a big crowd of paddlers at the Lemon when I arrived – they were from all over the globe: USA, Russia, France, UK, Germany and also the Austrian freestyle team. In addition to that there were some more paddlers living in the village just upstream of the Nile Special rapid – lot´s of people are fun at the Lemon, but the queue when paddling was going to be huge.

But still it is always good to meet old friends and meet new ones and spend the time paddling and playing games on the island or just relaxing during the hot hours of the day!

Elli on Club Wave

Elli

EJ on one of his daily fishing trips

Luke on Club Wave

Denise with a big bounce on Club

After setting up my tent I went for my first paddle on the Nile in my GuiGuiProd Helixir. I was really excited to see how this kayak would perform on a big wave. I did see Quim paddle here last year and videos of other waves but I had no idea how fast and loose this kayak is on a wave! I still had trouble controlling the kayak but a few times I glimpsed it's potential: quick turns and big aerial moves! Excited to see where this goes in the next days!

On the third day we had an amazing rainstorm: dark clouds were moving in and it started to rain: Just a little bit at the beginning but it soon turned into a proper storm. Wind was picking up too and blew the rain straight into your face when paddling back into the eddy. Above the water there was a fine mist - all these things make for an amazing atmosphere! And the smell of the wet ground after a long dry period of mmore than 5 weeks is very special too! These times, early morning fog and during a sunset are the times I love most for paddling on the White Nile!

Then on my 5th day on the Lemon we went for a night paddle. The full moon was just one day ago and the sky was clear so we headed out around 2 in the morning. I never experienced something like this before: The waterlevel was higher then I ever saw it before and compared to daylight Nile Special felt small - probably because of the limited sight-distance. Even the near to full moon only provided very scarce illumination. So we had to rely on our perceptions of the movement on the wave and moves went a lot easier than in daylight! I did clean blunts left and right - and found it very hard to repeat them the next day!

By that time I started to get used to the Helixir - it's an amazing kayak! And the first day of coaching with Sam Ward at Mu2 wave did help me a lot! Especially with airscrews, as I had a wrong understanding of how the movement worked. Mu2 wave is a smaller not so well know wave a little downstream from the Hairy Lemon and with the very crowded eddy at Nile Special (sometimes close to 20 people) it was great to have this wave to ourselves!

Mu2 - pictures courtesy Sam Ward

Mu2 again

After a week of paddling I decided to take a rest-day and visit my friends at the Soft Power Health Clinic at Bujagali. No one there knew I was coming so it was a big hello when I arrived – those guys seemed to be so happy that I visited them – it felt like coming home again!

Slides for microscopic examinations drying in the sun

Esther winnowing rice the traditional way

Some tomato plants in front of the new SPH building

After spending the day in Bujagali and Jinja I went back to paddling! Club Wave actually never showed up on a perfect level, it usually was trashy and very high! But on some days Nile Special came in around noon so some of us asked Grace to hold some lunch back and for a few days we shared the wave among 5 people only!

In-between the paddling there were lots of other things to do: play Frisbee Golf, slackline or play bananagrams – which actually was my favorite!

Towards the end of my short trip – only 2 weeks this time – Jessie Stone, founder of the Soft Power Health Clinic in Bujagali came down to the Lemon too! We had a lot of catching up to do – so many news about the clinic and unfortunately about the proposed dam too! When paddling at the Mu2 wave we could actually see part of the building site on our way back: for all the people who will have to leave their villages the government is building new homes – they just flatten all the trees and create a huge, dust area in which people are supposed to live later on. It´s a shame how these things always turn out really bad for the local communities! Here´s a very informative video about the Isimba Dam:

A Dam Lie

Myself on Special - Pic by Julian Gmoser

To help me with my preparation for the 2015 Kayak Freestyle World championship I had a 2^nd day of coaching with Sam Ward form Kayak the Nile – this time on Superhole to work on the technical details of a few different moves.

It was a great trip once again, getting to know new people, meeting up with old friends and get as much time on the water as possible!

Thanks to all of you for making this an amazing experience!

Here are some more pictures of the various paddlers:

Marcel on Nile Special

Elli on Special

Thomas

Thomas again

Hayden

Dane

Marcel

Lowri

Luke with a nice blunt

Bren

Bren and Paul

Jana

Elli

Julian

On one Friday the Ugandan Freestyle team held their monthly competition in preparation for this years World championship in Canada. It was good to watch those guys on the wave with Nich Troutman and Dane Jackson scoring the rides.

Besides that it was awesome paddling with those guys too! 4 World champions (EJ, Dane, Nich and later Emily too) staying at the Hairy Lemon and paddling every day – it was amazing.

Here are some pics of the Ugandan Freestyle Team (and some other paddlers):