Truth be told I have a wonderful girl friend here, so no more chasing. If you have read my blog below you’ll know I’m talking about Angel. I really love “living in” China. I like China (won’t say I love it, but living here, yes I do). The lifestyle is so different, offers a lot of freedom from living to pay bills. My teaching job gives me a good salary, nice work hours, and great job satisfaction! I really enjoy teaching, it’s almost unbelievable!

Also I go to English church on Thursday nights. We invite unbelievers to come also and they do! They look at it as a chance to further practice English and we talk about God’s grace, our faith, prayer, everything. Some of them have allowed Jesus into their hearts!

On upcoming Sundays I’ll be occasionally spending my mornings with the children of migrant workers. This is really important to me. Most migrants cannot afford to send their children to schools for classes with a foreigner. My church’s (and mine) hope is that their families will see God’s grace in us and become saved Christians, then take Christianity with them when they return to their villages and towns in less developed parts of China. Amen!

When I say, they cannot afford to send their children to schools with foreign teachers, I don’t want to mislead you. Their children are provided an education in a school but it isn’t going to be a high ranking school. Many schools here do not have a foreign teacher. There are also a number of private schools to learn English but the prices are usually far above anything affordable unless you are rich.

So it’s my love for spreading God’s word and teaching my students that keeps me tied to China. It’s my girl friend that keeps me tied to this city, Wenzhou. I’d like to move to another city where there is less pollution but she can’t quit her career and it’d be tough to take her daughter out of school here, she’s doing so well. I’m proud, she made a 99 on her English final!

Here in my city, 30% of the population is Christian! This is unheard of anywhere else in China. If you research Wenzhou, it is referred to as the Jerusalem of the East. The government isn’t friendly to unregistered churches, but it also doesn’t seem to be out banging on doors harassing them either. Other cities are mean to Christians, so I feel safer here practicing. In the future, I may travel and become an evangelist and share God’s word further from the safe streets. We’ll see…

I teach in a middle school, grades 7 & 8. My school’s name is Wenzhou Foreign Language Middle School. With a name like that you’d think they would have a few foreign teachers but I am the one and only. A fellow expat from Australia named Garry was the teacher here the past four years. The school is one of the most highly ranked middle school in the city and it is prestigious for me to have gotten the job. Thank you Lord!

Lastly, I’m happy here because there are at least 8 different hiking clubs that I’ve been on trips with. I brought my two kayaks with me and I’ve been doing some instruction. Seems I’m pretty good at teaching that as well. I bought a bicycle just over a year ago. I’ve had my tires patched countless times (seriously) and replaced the tubes 3 times. I had never appreciated how much fun bicycling really is! I have my dog Toto who really enjoys riding around with me and camping trips
as well.

I’m here because I really love my life here. I must thank the Lord once more for all of the good things in my life.

Yours,

Chuck

Angel nailed 3 for 3 on her rolls! Normally I wouldn’t let her roll over already setup but since it had been many months for us since we’d been in the water and the water’s temp was unlike anything she’d felt before I let it slide. I talked to her about later as we reviewed the photos and she’ll practice rolling without being setup in the future.

Those are the adjectives I remember most when I rolled up the second time at roll practice in the local lake here in Wenzhou, China. The water was freaking C O L D! =) Nothing compared to you far northern paddlers I’m sure but darn chilly here. The swimming club’s thermometer showed the temp was about 9.6 degrees Celsius but I really doubted it. I felt like it much colder.

I’m seriously perusing leads to growing kayaking popularity. To do it I’m gonna have to suck it up and do a lot more roll practice all winter and hope to interest others. Angel did well this summer learning her roll and she’s super ambitious about it too! She spent the first part of our time there showing videos on my laptop and explained about kayaking. Yes, those are stickers plastered all over the back of my laptop. I need more stickers!

We started with some footage of her on NanXi Jiang. Then we showed them some headcam footage from the Web and finally I pulled out the trailer for Teva’s movie, Dynasty. They were blown away. While they talked I suited up and carried my Hoss to the diving board. It is about 8 feet or 2.5 meters. I dropped in too straight shot back up on an ender and hit the dock behind me. Opps! *BIG GRIN* I did four or five rolls for the small crowd that had grown on this dock and another one nearby. Angel explained while I paddled on edge a few times and finally when I had worked up a sweat I hoped out.

Next Angel got ready and I couldn’t convince the guys to give it a try. We both seal launched from the concrete dock side and I asked one of the guys to take some pictures for me. Enjoy the bit of footage from Wenzhou, China 温州冲国.

It’ll be a weekly event starting this upcoming weekend. We’re happy to have the support of the swimming club. They kindly invited us to come any time and refused my offers to join and pay for membership. =)

Help me with this one though please! Angel’s ShredReady helmet always slips down over her eyes. It’s a real problem for her on the river. I’ve been meaning to ask others about this since summer but we were so busy having fun I completely forgot. She’s got short hair, no pony tail in the way. Actually she had a pony tail in the summer and had the same issue. We tightened the strap around the back of head (tightened it evenly, I double checked). I don’t know what else to do?

I look forward to your replies!

Since she knows all the doctor’s she called some people and we breezed through things. She even helped the doctor wrap my cast. Here’s the awesome part… I’m uninsured but no need to cringe, the total cost was about $32!

So to answer those curious, yup, I’m staying here! I’ll be home in America about Dec 18 – Feb5, then heading back to southeast China and Wenzhou.

Peace,

Chuck

Wow! I’m sitting in front of the TV; watching the Olympics and eating a well earned bowl of cereal. I’m the last day of a long weekend for me here.

Last week I discovered there is a rock climbing club here in Wenzhou, China, so I went and checked the place out on Monday. Out of the dozen or so friendly people there, about half spoke English! I made some new friends and was invited to come back often.

I showed them some pictures from my cell phone camera about kayaking. One of them grabbed me by the arm and said there’s my boat! He has a duckie (which for lack of everything else here, that’s cool!). Not the high quality types from NOC or anything but still, not a bad boat. Then he tells me the club is planning to go to a part of NanXi River I’ve never been to. They were all excited and promised that I wouldn’t be disappointed. They were right.

So I met up with them on Sunday afternoon at 12. It was a late start from what I was used to and the distance was much further, it took more than 2 hours. So we get to the put in, after stopping to rent a few more duckies and a raft. I brought my LL Hoss of course.

OMG! The girls… I think they all had boy friends but I was still admiring them. One girl had on a USA Flag bikini, I couldn’t resist complementing her on that. Another… had the word JUICY on the rear of her bikini bottom. I had to explain that word to some of my guy buddies. I don’t think any of them were her boy friend?

The whole section of the river is damn controlled. It is on during the day up until dusk. The first rapid was a solid Class II maybe II+. It had a great big wave train, hits the canyon wall and bounces back to river left. I was mildly disappointed no one flipped.

As we went on down we came to more and more rapids. Most were pool/drop, but some were long! Definitely a Class III in there one time. It was similar to the first one, lot of waves, some small holes and numerous eddies and a bend in the rapid turning the flow to the left. Well I had gotten comfortable and dropped my guard. I stayed close to the right wall and as I came over one big wave into the trough of another I saw something and I just didn’t want to believe what I saw, it was a big hole! It must have been 12 feet wide and the white was frothing a good 3 feet up. As I crested the next wave I saw it was real and I resolved to paddle hard around it. I tried to go left but I couldn’t clear it. I hoped to punch it and I guess I did but I ended up upsetting. I setup and rolled, Woot! Been a while since I got a combat roll. I parked in an eddy to watch the show… it dumped 3 duckies and I peeled out to help collect paddles, water bottles and various snacks that were floating down the river.

There was also an old washed out bridge/low head dam. The bridge was solidly built on the ends and in the center, like a wide low head dam but there were two wide openings where water could go underneath and I suppose there had been a bridge over the top of it at one time. So all this water flows through these two gaps and makes for a lot of fun. The left side seemed pretty easy, just a fast flow of water into a wave train. The right side, pretty similar to M-Wave, just a tad milder. I took the right side, hit it dead on, braced and braced again… I made it over or through. It was great!

The really cool part was the knowledge I was gonna see carnage! I eddied out on the right and the duckie right behind me flipped. I wasn’t fast enough with my rope to help them but the next duckie was fine and chased them down. Another few duckies all came and went okay. That changed as the last two boats came down. A duckie flipped and tossed the couple in it. I repeatedly yelled ROPE (not knowing how to say it in Chinese) until they looked at me and I let it fly. The lady caught it and I swung them both into the eddy below me. I’d just finished coiling it when I saw them pointing upstream. The four person raft flipped. It dumped them almost into an eddy just to the river right. I collected the yard sale.

It was a great way to spend a Sunday with new friends. I went to bed at 11pm and slept for 14 hours. Monday was a waste but I made up for it today!

I went back to this place. I took Angel with me. She’s got her roll now in the pool and it was time to try it on the river. We did some warm up and she didn’t hit many of her rolls. I decided it best not to run the whole section so I found a “park & play spot. It was a good place to work on ferries, eddy hopping and attaining. I put her to work pretty hard and she just kept pushing herself. It was cool to see. She upset once, missed two rolls and started slapping the bottom of her boat, I gave her a T-Rescue, luckily on her “on-side.”

Later I was setting a rope to make the attainment much easier and I felt a strong tug on the rope. I looked behind me and she was holding on, I saw her edge drop upstream and (Aww Crap!) she flipped. I was sitting in an eddy above her and I dropped the rope, peeled out into the current and chased her. She made one close try at a roll then started hitting the boating I was too far away. She punched out just as I arrived. She swam her boat into an eddy and I got her paddle. She’d torn some skin up on her foot and we were both tired. I suggested we call it a day. I set my other throw rope above her and returned with it to help her get back upstream where we could climb up the bank.

I had fortunately brought all my gear; 3 locking carabiners, 2 throw ropes, webbing, first aid kit, food and water. I put it all to use. Fortunately Angel is a former doctor and still does surgeries a few times a week. I handed her the first aid kit and explained which package had the anti-biotics in it. She took care of the rest there. I hauled the boats up and we just got home.

As we drove we stopped to take some photos. The locals often walked over to ask Angel questions and 3 different times people invited us to their homes for dinner. Angel kept declining for us, promising next time we would.

** There is a tad of bad news. I noticed today that I was taking in water. I searched for a leak and discovered I have cracked my Hoss. There are 3 cracks in the screw hole that holds the left side of the back belt in place. I saw this mentioned on the web before and I’ll go hunt the remedy.

More photos on FlickR

I’ve taught some other friends here how to T-Rescue (aka: boat rescue) but I really had been lacking the confidence in myself to teach someone the roll. With the help of EJ’s Rolling and Bracing DVD, played numerous times, re-played and explained/translated, she got a clear idea of the process. I’ve watched the advanced roll part and continued to push my own roll techniques further. I can roll with the paddle straight down, with hand paddles and occasionally with my hands (about 30% of the time). I’ve lost so much weight that I hadn’t noticed I’m falling out of my seat now when upside down. I’ll get some hip bads and keep working on my hand roll.

I just had to share my excitement! Soon we’ll get her in some moving water and see how that goes.

Problems: Head is coming up, I can help her with that, but also she isn’t keeping her left hand back. That’s been the biggest problem for her. I’m trying to be a bossy teacher sometimes and make her go through the steps while upright, over and over, to build muscles memory. Any suggestions?

A couple more pictures for ya’ll to see:

Sara and Angel taking the boats out to play. No helmets or skirts here, just flat water.

I had seen ZeYa last October when there was no water. A hiking club had lead a trip there and we’d hiked up the dry river bed and my imagination had been soaring picturing the rapid; holes, boof rocks, waterfalls… oh it looked great. We strapped my Huck to the top of Angel’s car and hit the road. We only took one boat, no way was I letting them on what I expected to be a fairly advanced river.

Martin and Angel both tried out throwing the ropes again by the road before I put on. They’re ready if I need them. They wore my extra PFDs and carried two throw ropes. We decided to scout roadside from the car first. What had been a deep lake behind a very tall dam in October was now a large pond. Angel said she read in mid June the government had ordered all of the dams to begin releasing in preparation for the summer rains (aka: Typhoons, Wenzhou had 3 in September and October when I first moved here, sweet). Under that lake was hidden some great whitewater! All Class II and III- fun stuff! Upstream, where I had hiked before… *cringe* Class III+ and IV. Some may have been Class V but I’m not experienced enough to read it, check’em out for yourself…

Without skilled paddling buddies I decided not to run the really scary stuff. I put on in a spot where I felt confident. It has been a year since I’ve been on real whitewater and this first rapid drops 10-12 feet in about 35 yards. I know, I’ve that’s nothing but a year off the water, it was plenty of solid excitement! I estimate it to be Class II – no way to avoid the drops without portaging, continuous rapids with small holes, nothing I thought would keep me.

Though we had scouted much of the river from the road above, we couldn’t see it all. The plan for Martin and Angel to hike along the bank with the throw ropes lasted about 20 minutes. The banks became walls as the valley changed into a gorge. My friends hiked out and back up to the road. With no one around, I took every precaution paddling alone. I took a throw bag, scouted everything and endured a frightening hike out; a narrow, slick, muddy trail with a drop over 40 feet straight down onto rocks.

Time to wrap this post up. There is a Typhoon coming tomorrow, I’m scared that lake is going to fill up again soon and I’ll be waiting till next summer to run Zeya again.

I can’t wait to hike down there and run this one:

The day left all of us with a great smile.

Here’s a link to all f the photos, but on a server here in China.

My job in China is now teaching English. Yesterday I taught an “English Corner” about kayaking. An English Corner is supposed to be giving the students a topic they are comfortable talking about but kayaking is brand new to all of them. It wasn’t a “good” topic for English Corner as it had me talking far more than all of the students combined. I did get them to ask a lot of questions and this challenged some of their vocabulary. English Corners usually last for one hour and sometimes our topics bore them and we loose students early, my classes yesterday ran late with students hanging around to hear more. My students are 17 and up. Some older adults, most are 19 to late-20s.

My enthusiasm for kayaking doesn’t allow me to do anything half hearted. Hours before class started, I carried both of my kayaks into school yesterday morning. I brought in my 24.5″ LCD panel and laptop. I had a great setup! My creek boat was in the back of class standing in the corner with my extra skirt, PFD, helmet and paddle. At the front center was the LCD running the “Shop Loop” from the Jackson Kayak DVD. I put my river runner on the stage at the front of the class along with extra gear.

I entered class just moments before it was to start. I was decked out in my semi-dry pants and semi-dry shorty top. I had my PFD, skirt and helmet on. The helmet was a huge hit! No one noticed it was my name on the front as well as the USA flag till I mentioned it. I only stayed in my gear for 10 minutes, the heat was killing me. Once I was down to my base layer, hydro-skin shirt, it was soaking wet with sweat. Thanks mom & sis for the extra supply of deodorant!

I spent about 240 RMB (about $33) to have 5 sets of vocabulary printed. I had color photos from one of my kayaking DVDs, made by NOC called, “The Kayaker’s Toolbox.” It is a great DVD for beginners and has proven useful for myself in cleaning up some of my own bad habits. So I taught them many new words; bow, stern, hull, grab loops, midwall, seat, knee brace, etc… I explained about the six categories of rivers and answered the “Is it dangerous?” questions, with a question, “Are you going to try that your first time in a kayak?” and pointed at the LCD where EJ or family was dropping off a waterfall. I explained that I only paddle what I am comfortable paddling. Many times they asked “Can you do that?” and pointed at the screen. If it was playboating I admitted that I haven’t learned how to playboat much yet but if it was a waterfall of 5 meters or less I’d say, “Yeah, I can do that, it’s easy.”

“Portage” was a hard word to translate but some of the advanced students finally understood my meaning and translated for the rest of the class. I pulled out my throw bags and sent them sailing across class (after translating the word HELP!). I tried to explain the joke that some kayakers will introduce themselves as, “Hi I’m Chuck, but I also respond to Help.” They didn’t get it… bad joke I suppose. I pulled a First Aid kit out of my dry bag (and after having learned “drytop” & “dry pants” they named “dry bag” off quickly) and discussed more about safety. They opened my first aid kit up curiously. I was sure to buy mine before I left America, I didn’t want to buy one and not be able to read the labels on the packets.

My English Corner was packed, I had 25 or 30 students the first class and I had people standing in the second class. It brought me a lot of joy to talk about something I am so passionate about! I could see they were all still curious afterwards. One lady in the class stayed late to talk to me, asking when I will go to the lake again. She told me she is a doctor. I had asked earlier during the class wanting to make a joke but she had kept quiet; the students are often shy to be called upon. Anyway, who better to teach to kayak with you than a doctor? That’ll be two lady doctors I’m friends with and interested in kayaking. They are cute to boot! I really gotta buy more boats, smaller ones too!

I will teach the same English Corner on Saturday. I’ve got a couple of ideas about how to improve it for those classes. Did I tell y’all how much I enjoy my job?

Thanks to Jackson Kayak for mailing me the DVD & Sticker. It was sitting here in China waiting for me when I arrived back in September (because I registered on this website with my Chinese address). I didn’t find it until this week when I started digging through all of my gear and getting ready for the English Corner. Sweet guys & gals! Thanks!

PS: Since I wrote this in Feb, I’ve taught this English Corner 3 more times and it was a big hit each time.

I have taken a job teaching English and I work five days each week. My days off are Sunday & Monday. The Sundays are great since this is when the hiking clubs usually take a trip. This past weekend my friend let me borrow his SUV for the weekend since he was going to be out of town Saturday – Monday.

The weekend got off to a terrible start when I came outside ready to hit the road and found one of the back windows had been smashed. The thief had seen an empty sports bag my friend left in the back, reached in, found it empty and left it. *sigh* I spent 550 RMB (nearly $75) to replace the window. The car was ready about 5pm, so I decided to try again on Monday.And just to let you know I used common sense about parking the car, I parked on a lite street with other cars, beneath a security camera. I wasn’t aware that the camera was a fake until the next morning when the police arrived and questioned the security guards. I should have checked the car for any left over items but as I was empty handed when I received the car I assumed it was empty. Assumptions tend to kick so many of us when we’re down.

I had been planning to go alone but one of my friends, Angel, expressed concern that I was going alone and I was happy to have her company. I met Angel on a hike a few weeks before and she is the one who so kindly took me to the outdoor adventure stores in Wenzhou. I met her again the previous weekend at an orienteering competition. She is a little older than myself with an 11 year old daughter. Angel works for an American company and works out of her home, so she sets her own work hours.

In my excitement to be traveling on my own (almost) I forgot to bring along food, water and *sigh* my camera. Angel proved more prepared than myself. She had brought a little food and and a bottle of water. When I mentioned lunch at some point she suggested she could go shopping for us. She doesn’t trust the healthyness of any food made along the streets and even prefers to avoid established restaurants in small villages and towns. She found a grocery store with sealed food packages, carefully checked expiration dates and brought the goodies back to the car where I waited.

I had entertained myself by watching the people passing along the street; students, parents or grandparents with little children, some people carrying huge loads of items hung from poles over their shoulders. One little boy noticed me in the store next to the car. His parents and I thought it was pretty funny, he wouldn’t stop staring at me. I tried some Chinese and English on him, his parents encouraged me but he wouldn’t try saying hello or waving. He just didn’t know what to make of the foreigner.

Angel and I hit the road again. I was driving very conservatively, buses, cars and trucks all passing me. At some point I realized we had been driving for more than three hours and we finally reached the headwaters. If my brother-in-law Liu Jian had been driving, no doubt we would have arrived an hour earlier. Here you must use your horn. If people walk in the road and don’t hear the horn, they don’t move. I think using a horn is a rude thing to do but I am now convinced that it is a necessary tool.

The headwaters area looked beautiful (Angel was sick of how many times I said, “I wish I had my camera.” but I’m saying it once again now). The valley we had been following upward now broke into three valleys that climbed steeply. The road took us to the right and we had nice views of the left most valley. There were huge slides of rock faces with just a little bit of water trickling down ward. The valley straight ahead had a number of car sized rocks piled in it and I couldn’t really grasp how the water may flow down here without numerous undercuts and tiny pools. The right valley was very narrow and creeky. At a curve in the road we crossed over the creek and saw a trail. This is where we finally hoped out of the SUV and had our lunch. We hiked up stream and ate sitting atop of a rock. I felt confident there must be a dam further up at the top, there was a steel water pipe running the length of the creek that we could see.

I believe there was likely a dam at the top of the straight ahead valley. The road seemed to lead in that direction so we mmight soon know but we had dinner plans back in Wenzhou and with the long road in front of us back home we decided to stop our all too brief exploration. My confidence in driving in the mountains of China had been greatly encouraged and I made the trip home much more swiftly, however once on the city streets we hit a traffic jam that had snarled everything. We sat for 45 minutes waiting to go two blocks.

The steep valleys are no place for me to be kayaking alone. They are far steeper than anything I’ve ever tried and usually more of what I see in the magazines and rarely in a video. The Tellico Ledges and Little in the Smokies are more my style for creeks. There appeared to be some sweet buggie water in the valley below these steep creeks and when the water comes again I’ll be there for the fun.

My friend with the SUV offered it to me again anytime I want so perhaps next weekend I’ll be better prepared for the adventure and take my camera. There is a rather more popular river to the West of Wenzhou that my friends all recommend I go try out. There are stories of a news team who went there with 9 members and came back with only 8. Another friend of my tells about his wife becoming stuck in a whirlpool eddy for two hours (sitting on a ducky raft or a tube, I couldn’t decide). Two hours on a cold water stream just feels like too much of an exaggeration to me but I must take the story of a death seriously. I’ll hope to go check it out soon. The stream is dam controlled and I was warned that someone called and they are not doing releases now.

Ahh, so much to look forward to!

Chuck

Today Angel stopped at my house. I showed her my kayaks and pulled out all of my kayaking, rock climbing and camping gear. We figured out where I was lacking and then hit the road. She took me to three outdoor stores. Two were small shops featuring a selection of camping and climbing gear. I was excited to see an old PFD in one of the windows but its only purpose was to be looked at.

The other place we visited for a couple hours is a large r company and they organize outdoor events. The owner is “Coach Lu” and he was excited to watch some videos I had with me. I showed him some stickers I had stuck on the back of my laptop and he recognized some of the brand names there (North Face, Petzl) and then I explained about some of the other stickers; American Whitewater, the National Paddle Film Festival, a Dagger boat sticker (I need a JK sticker, hint hint). I tried my best to give an overview of AW and what the organization does for the paddling community. Angel was playing the roll of translator and it was rather limited so we only covered the basics. I explained that likely less than 10% of kayakers (or perhaps it is all whitewater enthusiasts) are members of AW and tried to give him an idea of the sheer size of how many sport lovers (or addicts) are out there. I told him about Gauley Fest, showed him a couple of Tiva & IR commercials to demonstrate how much money US companies are throwing at marketing. Now he’s excited and asked me to plan to teach kayaking classes next summer! I didn’t tell him but I’d do it for free just to share an interest in the sport, what a joy!

I found most of the items that I was after, some new wool hiking socks ($3.40), a collapsible water bowl ($6.15), a cleaning kit for my water bladder and hose ($4.20) and actually this and the bowl weren’t on my list but were a good idea and cheap. I also picked up a pair of zippered pants ($14.70) XL was the largest they had and their a little tight in the caboose but I’ll try to keep loosing weight) and I bought a light weight tarp for $8. Not to bad of a shopping trip. I forgot to look for rock climbing shoes in my size. Their climbing harnesses are about the same as at home, Black Diamond brand. The harness I brought from home I haven’t used in years… I tried it on this morning and there is no way in heck I’ll ever be that small again! I wanted to buy a rescue pulley but I couldn’t find one, so one more purchase from the web.

Anyway I shared my love for kayaking at each store and there is a ton of interest! I’m really excited about next spring and already day dreaming again. It is after 1am here now and I’m not the list bit interested in closing my eyes… what an addiction we are all attached to. I’m hopeful that within three years I’ll be posting announcements about a paddling festival in my part of the world!

Always hopeful,

Chuck

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.