Gwilym's Adventure Blog

Out on Dartmoor today with my BTEC students looking at Navigation skills with a view to completing the Bronze NNAS award before moving onto Silver. Nice weather with low wind and dry but it was very cold at times.

Today I was on The River Dart from Buckfastleigh to Staverton assessing for 3 Star White Water Kayak. Well done to both students today and although only one passed, both paddled well and have come a long way this side of Christmas. Water levels were higher than previous trips but did drop during the paddle. This is my last paddle on the Dart this season. A few office based days to go and then it is up to Scotland at the weekend.

A couple of hours teaching climbing this afternoon at Marjons climbing wall . A couple of students very closes to completing NICAS 2 now.

Today we were on the Upper Dart looking at grade 3/4 safe boating skills and setting safety on rapids. Although I had a couple of rolls I was thinking that I was going to stay dry today but we all took a compulsory swim and rescue as part of the day (see the video). Thanks again to Darren Joy at Fluid Skills for a great course.

Today I was on the first day of an Advanced White Water Safety and Rescue course run by Darren Joy of Fluid Skills . This builds on the skills from the WWSR and puts it in a steeper and more powerful environment. Bank based on The Erme today so we could get all the set ups clear in our minds. On the river tomorrow.

Today I had a group at The Life Centre Climbing Wall in Plymouth. We bouldered and top roped for a couple of hours.

Today I was at Undercover Rock on the BMC FUNdamentals 3 course Hmm. What to write? I have attended both FUNdamentals 1 and 2 in the past and came away inspired with some good ideas. Unfortunately I can not say the same about this course. It felt like a poorly thought out course with no real content to it. Infact, I am very angry at the £65 cost and the 250 mile round trip. As it was called Physical Training for Climbing I was looking forward to looking at some specific exercises to train particular muscle sets for climbing. And maybe some exciting and new training ideas that would improve your climbing. During the morning we identified that climbing involves all muscles (nothing new but obviously this took some time and some flip chart along with some help from some pretty bland powerpoint). During the afternoon we established that if you want to become stronger you climb short steep routes and if you want to improve endurance you climb lots of easier routes (again, noth...

Out with Gold DofE students this afternoon on a wet and soggy Dartmoor. I did stay a bit drier than the last few days but not a lot. The moor is saturated at the moment and there were some very impressive cloud formations brewing.

Today I was out with both Upper and Lower 6th on the Dart between Buckfastleigh and Staverton. Levels have come up an bit and it was flowing nicely. All students are looking more comfortable in their kayaks and some were feeling brave enough to surf the waves. I have had enough of being wet for a while so no more kayaking until Monday.

My kayak  So here we are 2 weeks into January and I have paddled most of The River Dart. Having paddled the West Dart  and Loop last week followed by both the lower sections, I got onto the Upper Dart with Mark and Gary this morning. Levels were hovering around the slab and were good once we got going. It was all going well until I got caught out and had a swim above Euthanasia. I made it to the bank but my kayak went on without me, meaning I had to walk around it and get the boat back afterwards.

Out today with Upper 6th students on the River Dart looking at 3 Star skills. They threw ropes, rescued kayaks, rolled, surfed, ferried, broke in and out and generally had a great time on some reasonable water levels.

Today I was at Plas Y Brenin for the Tutors course for the new Hill Skills, Mountain Skills and Lowland Leader Courses.

Today Olly and I were out on the River Dart with 7 students. Levels were good and with a faster flow than we had at the end of last term, the students had a few unintentional swims.

Today, Dan, Dan, Mick and I paddled the West Dart and as we still had daylight left we had a quick blast down The Loop . We made sure we had coordinated with a different colour Burn each. I am impressed with the new boat though I need to paddle a few more rivers before I give a final opinion. It does handle somewhat differently to my old smaller Burn but it only caught me out a few times and not so much that I needed to roll or swim.

A new year and a new boat. Today my new Pyranha Burn III arrived and it is my 5th personal Pyranha Kayak. In the past I have had an Ammo, Karnali, Zone, Varun and the previous Burn, all in the standard yellow and jaffa colours, all of which have looked after me. I also ran a fleet of Zones and Karnalis for teaching, they too were in the yellow and jaffa making a total of 11 boats in all. Well, this time I have opted to change colour (gulp). I have also stepped up a size in order to be able to carry more and have more volume when running bigger rapids. I hope this boat looks after me as well as all the others have. I hope to hit the river tomorrow to find out.

Happy New Year to you all. I look forward to posting lots of adventures through 2014.