This year I went back, for the course I should have been taking last year. Not really fit, neither mentally nor physically, I went down the 1200km drive to Roquebrun.

With a group of 4, we are a small but really nice group of paddlers, as always all with a different background and a slightly different skill level.

The first day is, just like with the basic whitewater course, a flatwater day. Repetition and finetuning of the basic strokes is part of the day, together with a focus on carving, boat tilt and backward paddling. Especially that last part appears not to be that easy for some of us! But hey, if we can't do it on flatwater, we certainly won't be able to do it on the river.

 The first day of river paddling starts with focus on basic river manoevres, using the current, stroke minimalisation, set the angle right, timing, ... . But at the same spot we also work on our backferries. After spending a large part of the forenoon on that same playspot, we continue after lunch downstream. Still the same section as I paddled last year (Vieux - Ceps) but it is as always a nice section and water levels are good. On our way down we get to practice how to catch eddies in the outer curve, controlled ferries with angle controll, surfing, backferrying, it's all there. And of course a couple of swims are not excluded either :).

From Ceps to Roquegrun there is another short section, but interesting to combine when starting in Vieux. We did not play that hard at the beginning, but extra hard during the trip down. The most beautifull part of the extra section is a river-wide rapid. On the right side, there is a relative easy pass through but you end up in the outer curve and some bushes might annoy you. On the left side, there is a small drop, but great to boof into the eddy on the right side. We all go for the left side and boof into the eddy. The drop also provides a really great sticky-surf hole. Effortless I could have passed the rest of the afternoon there, surfing.

But we are in Roquebrun for a whitewater course, so it's time to drive down to Réals and go for a paddle on the slalom area. Last  year was great, and the lower section with ww III-IV is on my agenda.
But there appears to be an astonishing bunch of water in Réals. The water pressure is much higher then it was last year, and many eddies that were present last  year, were now just vanished. Some waves were flatened out, other features were a lot meaner. And water levels were still rising. Just paddling down is not that hard, but hitting the eddies en making all the moves appears to be quite challenging.
We can anyway count on a good rescue setup before the drop, in case of a swim.

Paddling in Réals is so rewarding that we had to go back another day. The water level was a bit higher then the day before. But we were used to the section, so we could handle a bit more. Though from my side fatigue came in, which resulted in a offside-tilt-swim in what looked like a harmless hole. That hole appeared to be much more retentive then I estimated at first sight, and kept me and my boat in the hole, boat against the rock, I downstream, still int he rock. The first reflex is to swim out backwards, such a small thing. But I didn't manage. To get out, I needed some dead mass in the current, which could be me, or my boat. I first tried to move on the side to the boat into the current. Unfortunately that was not a successfull move. So the alternative was to drop that boat into the current, which it did after some attempts. The boat got into the current and dragged me out. But no really good eddy was near, rescue post was closeby and I was getting really tired of fighting my way out. So I let go of my boat, being captured by the rescue post, and made it to shore. I stacked my paddle in the bushes and swam over to join the rest of the group. Ralf was so kind to recover my paddle.
After that fight, energy levels were almost empty from my side. But we weren't ready for the day. We still had to do a rescue exercise. A lined jumper should recover Heinz from the river, on the rescue post - it means, just above that nasty section where you'd rather don't swim down. Just to be sure, we put up 2 extra rescue posts even closer to the nasty thing, but not to close to loose every chance to recover someone.
That extra security proved worhtwhile, if it wouldn't have been a scene from dr throwline. The lined swimmer got on the loose with line and rolled over the stones right upstream from the drop. The 20m of line got stuck between the rocks, which luckily kept him from drifting further down. While Heinz was making his way out, he yelled at me: "Zeil". I was aiming for the unfortunate swimmer, trusting Heinz to swim his way out. But that 1second yell blew my throw, I missed. It appeared to be very difficult to stuff a throwbag with neo gloves, so they are no good in rescue situation. Rethrowing an unstuffed bag goes pretty well on the lake or on a calm exercise set, but appears to be a lot harder in a real rescue situation.
Heinz kept calm, stuffed a throwbag and recoverd the swimmer. Then someone had to get over to recover the 20m rope from the stones, since we couldn't leave that in the river.
Now energy levels were completely empty. But, no one got really hurt, and we recovered everything and everybody. The only damage was a bit on the rope of the throwline.

After that incident, non of us felt like paddling the downstream section. So it's still on my agenda!

 The last day we went for the lighter upstream section, upstream of Vieux. My energy levels prooved to be really empty, so I blew the most easy manoevres. Just paddle downstream, try to survive. I know I can do it, just not that day.

The conclusion of this week was that it was again very rewarding, for all of us. And we all learned from it, the good and the bad. But most importantly for me: if you want to do some serious whitewater paddling, you have to have a decent condition.

No images for this week, but I did compose a video: