A slideshow was given by Mike Devlin, Director of coaching at BCU. He showed a breathtaking set of photos from a number of trips to the south pacific ocean, taking it visits to the falklands, Antaritic, and an attempt to circumnavigate James Ross Island often ice bound within the Ice sheets of the Larson Ice Shelf. Some amazing photos and a video of penguin surfing.

An early night followed for some, I perhaps stupidly kept up the late night tradition on behalf of the club. Guess who slept in the next morning, nearly missing my cooked breakfast. Of course my alarms (all three of them) did go off, I just slept through them unlike the other 4 people I was sharing a room with, (did i mention that they went off over an hour before people actually had to get up at). Thanks go to Doug for making my lunch while I ate.

First session went well with Mike McClure expertly teaching us the EMM of Sea Kayaking, Efficiency, Momentum & Mobility. Pushing the boundarys of a no. 4 edge in a sea kayak nearly saw me tip over but good old bracing saved me from getting my hair wet. An unlucky lady over from England took a swim when we went out in the windy exposed part of the lake, Mike had her back in her boat before you could say “brrrr its windy”.

A quick tea break later and it was back on the water for canoe sailing. I had seen kids at outdoor centers do this activity before but it had never seemed that successful. A great sail building masterclass and we were soon speeding down the lake at a rate of knots (isnt that a silly gay sailing term), obviously our ship building was a different class to those i had seen before.

The stop for lunch was a welcome break and it was good to get chatting to so many people. For the WWSR session we got dropped at the bridge at the top of the river lennan, a dry land introductory session was delivered by Rodger Hamilton then it was on to the river to practice a few different techniques for guiding people down the river. A little surfing on the wave followed with me getting my face wet for the first time for the day, doh! then we switched instructors and were passed into the capable hands of the two Daves, Irish Dave Carroll and Scottish Dave. We learnt the science of throw ropes, various techniques and then took part in throwbag olympics. The eager instructors were all to willing to jump into the river to play the part of swimming casulties, showing off their drysuits of course.

Back to the center, a hot shower and a hearty dinner followed by two portions of apple crumble put the world to right. Off down to the boat house for the evenings activities. Mike from BCU did a Q&A session on the new coaching scheme for all interested parties; A CANI member did a short session on leave no trace followed by the extremely well supported paddlefest raffle. Many very good prizes donated, proceeds going to a very worthy cause. Doug ended up with a voucher for coaching sessions with Mobile Team Adventure, and Joan and I ended up with t-shirts and Dolores got a mug thrown into the audience which I directed her way with my fist via her bottle of wine. Then the star of the show Dave Caroll took to the stage, starting with a few disco moves, a few mexican waves then onto his video of his recent trip to the Zanskar Gorge in the Himalayas.  A grade 3/4 river had its highest water levels in over 30 years, resulting in the group having to stop mid river and trek for three days out over mountain passes of over 15,000ft, They then negotiated with some locals to recover their boats before they started it all again, this time successfully.  You would think the man is a comedian and not a kayaker, an excellent delivery kept the crowd entertained all night.  The finish to the talk Ashley being crowdsurfed