White Water Rescue Course (26/27 April 2008) |
 |
Swimming in white water: We spend most of our time trying to avoid it, but on this weekend we spent a lot of time in it getting knocked about - and being rescued (sometimes).
Nobody likes to think about it much, but what are you going to do when your paddling partner is floating off downstream out of their boat: do you chase; do you throw them a line; should you have sorted out of something beforehand? The answer isn't easy and no two situations will ever be the same, but the BCU White Water Safety and Rescue course gives you some tools to use, and some rule to make sure you use them safely.
Our instructor Steve turns up with his two dappy dogs. And, first things first we sort out a brew and have introductions - including a snout in my groin, I think it was a dog's. Then we get down to business. The course is broken into segments and the first is theory which focuses on avoidance (plus some interesting hand signals). We all learn to CLAP. No we didn't sit round applauding the dogs for sniffing what they shouldn't. CLAP is a nemonic: Communication - Line of sight - Avoidance - Position of most usefulness - what everybody should be doing on the river. We go through each in more detail and generally get a better understanding of how we currently run rivers and how we should be running rivers.
Next we all don dry suits and head into the river for a swim - lovely, just what I had been wanting to do. Luckily it was quite warm (at least by kayaking standards). We went through the different styles of swimming and how to get yourself out of problems.
After swimming we spent some time throwing throw bags. We learnt that we can't throw that 30 meter bag it's full distance, so best learn to swim within 15 meters of a bank if you want to be rescued. Then it was back in the water and more swimming and some not too bad throw line throwing (although probably because we had be practising for a while before hand). Next came `live-bating' which sounds like it has something to do with fishing mainly because it does - tie a rope to your chest harness and `go fishing' for your victim.
There was more to learn the second day with boat based rescues, setting up hauling systems to free boats, tensioned lines to keep victim's heads above the water amongst other things. What was most impressed was keeping things safe and simple. You needn't carry half a climbing rack to do any of the rescues. In fact, there is only a minimum of kit needed.
For anybody thinking about learning about safety and rescue, everybody on the course would recommend it. The skills you learn are invaluable - And, you even learn that swimming ... it isn't so bad.
Some pictures
