Folks, I had meant to post this before my vk ... I hope some of you still remember the event ....
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Beast Feast 2012 ? Kurt's Top Eight Personal Favourite Moments:
#8
A particularly charming, likeable and gregarious CdB member, with large eyes, unmistakable on the water in her cute little itty-bitty 48 gallon playboat decorated with flowers, offering to ?show her breasts? to event staff in exchange for additional raffle tickets.
Me offering to give her
all of my raffle tickets should she follow through.
#7
An event organizer holding up a raffle prize ? which I believe was a piece of safety apparatus that fits around the waist ? and someone exclaiming: ?Hey look, it could be a chastity belt for Jacques!?
#6
A large and muscular CdB member, reputedly of Slavic origins and fond of Slovenian beer, gnawing away happily at a heaping plate of food, which, upon inspection, contained absolutely nothing but meat.
#5
A certain very extroverted and spirited female member saying ?But I WANT to surf Roto-tiller,? even in the face of advice from a highly experienced club executive discouraging her from the attempt, and despite having lost or broken no less than three paddles last year following similar misadventures.
?So, how did she do?? I asked the executive afterward (having missed the event myself during my own efforts to stay upright). He yawned, then squinted at a spot somewhere across the river. ?She got flipped and thrashed, swam, then got spit out,? he said. ?It was really nothing you would ever want to watch twice.?
Um ? CdB members: could we take a vote on that last statement??
#4
My two teen-aged sons, brand-new to the club, whose overall paddling feats on the weekend did themselves and me very proud, taking a few minutes out to perform synchronized swim manoeuvers for the group on Haute Tension, Evan in front, Justin behind. Left-arm, right-arm; left-arm, right-arm.
?I don?t understand why I swam!? cried Evan, wide-eyed, once safely in the eddy at the bottom.
?Because you went into the hole,? explained Sandra, in the sort of calm, patient tone you might use on an accident victim.
?But I didn?t know where I was!? cried Evan, somewhat redundantly.
?You were in the hole,? Sandra gently repeated.
#3
A spontaneous cheer erupting as the youngest-looking 68-year-old South African doctor in the club rolled successfully following several attempts and a rather harrowing-looking upside-down journey down Corbeau.
Noting the cut on his cheek, and his ambivalent facial expression even in the midst of all the cheers, I asked him if he had encountered any rocks down there. ?Not to worry Kurt,? he said, dabbing his cheek, and smiling faintly at me with a certain pained irony, as if to silently acknowledge that an entire day of river-running lay yet ahead - ?my helmet took the brunt of it.?
#2
My youngest son, in his second-ever run down any river, electing (unwittingly) to take a line which would have him boof the giant boulder-drop centre-right on le Mur and punch the large sticky hole beneath. Except that, never having heard of a boof stroke, he did not apply one, nor in fact did he apply any paddle strokes whatsoever within 5 metres of the hazard, freezing instead like a statue as soon as he realized that the ?tongue? he thought he was following ended in a horizon line.
From our perspective down-river, Evan and I saw Justin wobble, slow to a near stop over the boulder with his paddle in the air, then plunge downward directly vertically. All we could see for the next five seconds or so was his stern protruding from a foam pile, moving jerkily in a random pattern, and then, after what seemed an eternity, a couple of arms, and finally, to our relief, the white of a helmet.
?As soon as I looked down and saw those bubbles,? Justin would say later, ?I knew it was all over.?
#1
A club member of many years? experience observing, from the shore alongside Lucifer?s, what he would later describe as ?this totally amazing kayaker doing cartwheels in Rototiller.?
Then the shout of another voice, rising above the wind and water: ?Holy shit ? that?s Denzil!!!!?
After which was observed, based on what I have gathered second-hand, the following:
- The cartwheeling kayaker attempting six (6) rolls, gamely fighting the thrashing re-circulation of the hole;
- The kayaker at last being released from the hole, upside-down
- The upside-down kayaker, while being pushed down the rapid, calmly rubbing and tapping the side of his kayak
- A woman screaming, after some twenty seconds of horrified observation, ?Oh for God?s sake, SWIM ALREADY!?
- The floating kayaker continuing to calmly tap and rub the side of his boat for another 25 seconds until two boats managed to steak across the current to his side, even as children cried, dog?s barked, and other paddlers clasped their life vests, pounded their fists on their helmets and blew their whistles
- The kayaker being SUCCESSFULLY T-RESCUED after all of this, thanking his rescuers in a gentlemanly manner
- This kayaker later revealing that in his paddling club in Winnipeg, his nick-name had been ?The Gill?
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My fellow paddlers, and event organizers, I salute you, and thank you for an awesome weekend!
By the way, I recount these tales with respect, freely acknowledging that in one single run down the Main last year I was involved in more carnage than this entire montage combined. And that I will no doubt be involved in much more to come.
Until next time!
