Chertsey

Chertsey Trip
30th September 2006
On Saturday 30th September saw our club trip to Chertsey, arriving at 1pm for a 1-30pm launch we were really looking forward to our first trip with the club and our first river trip.
Launch under way, me (Andy, Stacey my daughter and Keith my friend) were on the river Thames paddling up stream with Steve West, Dave Campbell and about 7-8 other people, Ben and a few others had gone straight to Chertsey weir where we would all meet up later.
We started to paddle upstream for about half an hour. When we were paddling back me, Stacey, Keith and Steve played the numbers game, the person at the front had to shout out 1, 2, 3 or 4. One meant you had to paddle forwards, two meant you had to paddle backwards, three meant you had to paddle sideways using the skull and draw, and four meant the person at the back had to switch to the front and shout out the different numbers.
When we had been up and down the river we came back down to the weir, where we had to go down a slope to get to the open water where the pour over was.
We started to do some edging across the water, and practised our strokes so we could get used to doing them in moving water, this was a great confidence builder.
I decided I would like to have a play in the pour over in my kayak a few words of guidance from Ben and in I went, have a look at the video clip for the result, this was my highlight of Chertsey.
Nearly everybody had a go in the pour over. Me, Dave Campbell and Keith slid down the pour over which took us into the fast moving water that took us under and resurfaced 10-15ft away from where we went in, what an experience!


All in all it was a great day at Chertsey and all three of us can’t wait to go there again.
A very big thank you to Steve West, Dave Campbell and Ben West for looking after us, and a big thank you to all the other paddlers in the group you made us feel very welcome.



Report by Andy Brothers, Stacey Brothers and Keith Paddock