Pride goeth before the swim…
Posted by yakdaddy on May 23rd, 2008
Nolichuky - April 6, 2008 - 1900 cfs
It was a beautiful Sunday in early April and I’d finally arranged to demo Wesley’s new Jackson SuperHero. The sun was shining, temps were in the low 70’s, and the Noli was running 1800-2000 cfs of yoohoo colored fun - the most water I’d seen in the Nolichucky in over a year! I commented on the nice flow and Shane mentioned how nice it was. He said he’d even had some excitement at Jaws… “watch out for that pocket on surfer’s left, it gets really sticky at these levels…”
Later, as I was adjusting the seat position and hip pads in the demo boat, Dan Thomas strolls up and asks:
“You gonna put your float bags in that boat?”
“Dan,” I replied as I shrugged off his question, “it’s only the Nolichucky…”
An hour later, we’d had nice runs of Entrance and On the Rocks and were sitting in line at Jaws. In due time, I paddled over the boil and enjoyed 2 or 3 quick surf-flip-flush-roll combos (my signature playboating combo). My third time eventually found me locked into a stubborn side surf that typewritered me over to that river-right pocket Shane had mentioned. Sure enough, it was really sticky at these levels and absolutely refused to let me go. I tried to force the bow down into the oncoming water to blast out but ended up just powerflipping. Plan B was to hang out upside down for a bit so that I’d flush out but, much to my dissappointment, I rolled up right where I’d started and the rodeo continued. I surfed some more and paddled hard for river left but flipped again - rolled up in the hole, AGAIN. At this point, I’m getting winded and a bit worried about hurting my shoulder if this goes on much longer. I looked over said shoulder at the eddy crowd hoping somebody would offer some advice or maybe even a rope. The carnage vultures just sat there grinning because they knew what was coming, and the fist pumpers kept on cheering cause… I don’t know what they were thinking… maybe they thought I still had a chance? Eventually, I flipped for the last time and held my breath for a few seconds and actually flushed out without realizing it - whiffed a couple of half hearted roll attempts and punched out in the outflow… only to be greeted at the shore by Mr. Thomas grinning from ear to ear and commenting - “that boat seems to be floating kinda low… “