Winter paddling

It's time to dust off the earwig and the pogies for the winter paddling. The water temperature seems to have dropped in the last week, and yesterday I had major ice-cream head for the first time since March. Thankfully though, this is all due to the huge amounts of rain we've been getting. Hurley has already been on 3 gates for more days than the whole of last season, so things are looking up for a good season of boating.

This weekend we had rain of biblical proportions, perhaps too much, as everything went high, and then went even higher! Unfortunately the high-water weirs are often a little fickle and only come in for a day (if you're lucky), so you need to time it right. Shepperton, the usual high-water weir, forms a really fast wave - the best wave in the country, at the right levels. Sunday morning was supposedly the best time to be there, unfortunately this was when I was sandpapering the walls of our bedroom! When we were there on Saturday the bottom level was too low and the wave wasn't forming, and by Sunday afternoon it was apparently getting too high and turning into a hole.

On Saturday, Ed and I checked out Sunbury weir which has recently been found to produce a nice wave at medium-high levels. Unfortunately when we got there it was a bit too high for a wave, and was forming a REALLY big hole, we surfed on the river left shoulder, which formed every now and again, but mainly was difficult to stay on, and naturally we were both too scared to get right into the guts of the hole (however, I did get a lot closer than Ed, although he insists this was by accident)! We didn't spend long on the river, but it was good to try out a 'new' Thames Valley Weir. Maybe next time we'll get the right water levels.