China’s Eastern Rivers

I had a great time on the water Saturday. Went to another place on the NanXi Jiang and had a great time. My sister-in-law dropped Liu Jian, Hang Hang and I off with my two boats. The proposed idea was for us to paddle and one swim along. The water was good, a little chilly but really not bad!

We had a number of people to watch us and alas, I forgot the skirts at home. I left them out of my gear bag to add some sealer to them, opps.  So no rolls today to show off right? Wrong! I couldn’t resist, I flipped over a few times and rolled up without the skirt. Fun stuff and just glad it worked! Of course I had to go empty it each time.

We planned to paddle a couple of kilometers to meet Cathy and she’d drive us back for a second trip. We set off and it wasn’t long till Liu Jian was holding on to the back of my kayak. I’m used to pulling someone across an eddy line, not down a flat water river. I told him it wasn’t going to work and maybe he should hike back on the bank to borrow a cell phone and call Cathy for a ride.

We stopped on an island and I could hear some water running on the other side. I’d have bet it was just some shallow shoals but I climbed up and over the hill to see and it was a great Class II rapid! It was as classic and straight forward as you could ask for. Flat water approach, the shores narrowed and formed a rapid. I ran it first for Liu Jian to watch, Hang Hang wanted nothing to do with it.

Liu Jian ran it and soon Hang Hang was cheering. I got him into my Huck, Liu Jian went again in the Hoss and I swam the rapid in front of them. Where the water began to accelerate and build into a wave train the water was about 8-10 inches deep. Then in the later part of the wave train it was a few feet deep. There was a good eddy on the right.

Alas, we had no means to contact Cathy and needed to hurry so we could get back here for the second trip and just play in this spot. I was out of the boat anyway at this point so I decided to walk/job along the beach and let them paddle the flat water a little ways. We came to a shoal and I’d rank it a Class II- rapid. Easy bouncy waves with a couple of shallow rocks. Hang Hang paddled up to it but then quit paddling. It was a long shoal and his boat rotated side ways in the wave train… he stayed upright and all was good! I told him (via his dad translating) that his balance was impressive, that it is challenging to stay upright in waves when your side ways. But I pointed out if he had kept paddling then he would have stayed straight. Little pats on the back and lessons mixed in.

So they had a good time, finally Liu Jian swapped with me and I paddled with Hang Hang. In the end Hang Hang’s arms gave out, like I said it was a few kilometers of flat water and in white water boats, it wasn’t fast going. A number of bamboo boats ferrying tourists (funny, I think of them as tourists and me as belonging there) up and down the river for sight seeing trips had been passing us. We got him a ride on one of those and us two guys paddled the home stretch.

By the time we arrived it was getting late and couldn’t make a second run. I was just thrilled to have seen them run their first two rapids and very successfully! It was a big day for them and I couldn’t have been happier to have seen it!

The bad notes… shortly past our take out (I kept paddling the few hundred meters to go see and paddled back) the river is dammed up by piled rocks. They have nets set to catch crab (which we ate fresh last week) across the river. I felt confident I could navigate through the maze but not the other two. The other thing was I noticed a terrible smell (rare for me as I have a terrible sense of smell) and behind me was a dead goat, bloated from being beached in the sunlight. Yuck!

Lastly… as we left the island I had earlier mentioned, there was a man who had swam across to the island and was just walking up the beach in his underwear. He proceeded to drop said undies and dump in the river… Ack! I mean, he’d just swam from the parking lot where there was a working bathroom…! I wanted to scream some obscenities but I don’t know how in Chinese so I just shook my head and walked along the beach refusing to allow myself to step in water for five minutes.

I’m looking forward to getting the guys back in the boats in two or three weeks. I’m traveling this weekend and all of next week. Visiting five cities for various markets and trade shows in the optical business.