Or at least I thought I did…
 
The weekend of 18/19 December saw a unlikely bunch of Tigers along with a carefully selected bunch of guests primed and ready to participate in their new 3* in preparation for the new Level 2 coaches course that we were about to embark on over the festive period (one of the course prerequesites was to hold a 3* certificate in open boating.)
 
In the run up the weather had been causing serious concerns; as had my lack of canadian experience.  Bri had had a mock up on darren’s couch and Ramz had literally only splashed around in one once or twice! With the river being a no go area for quite some time with all the ice, practice hadn’t been an issue, it just hadn’t been.  Matt and I lept at the opportunity to have a little pre course try out, volunteering to collect the boats, kindly offered to us by Stockton-and-Thornaby CC.  We expertly tied “the beasts” together and jerkily proceeded on our way down to the centre. There must be a better way of doing this…  Boats safely stored, all that stood in my way was a night of boozing, which given recent form was going to my greatest test of the weekend…
 
Saturday saw an early start (for some) I thought that 9ish was a bit of a lie in until my alarm clock went of and I was late!
 
Lesson 1- tethering open boats together.  As expected there was a much better way of tethering boats together for towing, but “not if you want to just jurk along in an ungainly fashion in the most inefficient of styles”.  Saturday’s aim was to get out on the river to get a lot of the ground work done so that we knew the difference between J-stokes and goons, bow rudders from onside pivot turns. The day went on and all had made execllent progress, Dave Hellawell comes highly recommended, although stated quite early on that polo isn’t proper canoeing and if anyone from the BCU asks we are not having any fun!
 
The day went on and the weather was particularly fine of late so some idiot suggested that it would be a good move to get the rescues out of the way (that was me!).  I mean who other than me would think that because we only needed to break the ice when we got on that it was a perfect day to splash around up to our necks in Tees! Quick smart, done and dusted, day 1 over, only another evening’s boozing and shmoozing lined up before the equally relaxed 9am start on Sunday (this is the problem about December, so many Christmas parties! Good job I’d had no fun all day ;)).
 
Sunday, no sign of a hangover in sight and a bright morning, looks like it’s gonna be another good day. That was until we turned off the A66 in Stockton to find 8 inches of the white stuff and a completely frozen river, and I mean completely frozen.   Other paddlers would have been put off, but that’s not the Tees Tigers way.  We opened a flask and came up with a plan…
 
Instead of trying to rearrange the day we decided that as open boaters, we’d don our dry suits and head up the Tees a little further to where there is more movement and see what it’s like there.  A little bit of an adventure was called for!  Everyone dumped the boats at Neasham, donned their warmest canoe kit ever (for Ramsey this included 2 rash vests and 3/4 length trackies!?!?!) and loaded up the palatial craft with butties, cakes and flasks.  On returning from the shuttle, we all mounted our beasts and headed off on our adventure practicing all of yesterday’s skills and more, at one point a few of us were bordering on having to practice the rescues after a few over zealous races!  We stopped for lunch before proceeding down the iceflows. To set the scene a little the River Tees had no eddies other than piles of ice by the river bank and behind rocks, the main stream was like an iceflow from a David Attenborough documentary. We proceeded downstream with relative ease, taking advantage of the stable craft by standing upright to take a glimpse at rapids that we were to negotiate, stopping to have a chat while our partner carried on paddling, admiring the scenery and having a really good time (unless the BCU are reading this in which case it was all serious stuff!).
 
At the end of our trip, I was sad to have to leave the battleship behind, it had served me well.  We had all mastered the beasts and all marched away with the 3*, Ramsey got his 2* too!  We did band about the idea of organising a trip up to Loch Ness, but we’ll see if this was the hangover and cold weather talking or if it was actually a sign that we actually did quite enjoy ourselves…
 
Nicky, Ramz, Matt, Bri, Andrew, James, Ledger.