Ardeche River Kayaking

This weekend we made a great action trip to south of France to Gorges de l'Ardeche. We started paddling on Friday afternoon, slept in the camping under the stars and on Saturday finished the Ardeche river experience totalling 30km in two days.

Our group counted 16 people with 8 girls and 8 boys - perfect ratio for two-crew kayaks. I have to mention that thanks to Jeffrey Davis who organized the whole thing, we got a super save for rental of equipment. We put all our things into plastic barrels and mounted them to the boats. Everybody practiced the steering of the kayak and 8 crews set sail.

Girls as captains in the front, boys as engines in the rear - the first-day paddling took us almost 5 hours. Everybody was getting a little bit desperate because the way to our camping seemed to be endless. Water was cold, everybody was wet, sun was on vacations - only Jeff and few beer-drinking guys were keeping the group spirit. One of the boats capsized in the rapids and the crew became so cold and hopeless that they called 112 emergency and got rescued. They got a ride to the camp in a van.

Showers in the camp were just a bit warmer than the river, but putting dry clothes on made a very positive sensation that nobody was feeling for a few hours. In the evening, we did a barbecue and opened few more beers to celebrate the first day without any losses. The legendary characters have beed born on this occasion - Beer Beast (Martin) and Beer Fairy (Maxime?). There were still some bottles full but everybody was quite tired and fell asleep in their sleeping bags. The night was warm, even that we slept outside.

The next day only 6 of 8 boats continued, the crew of remaining 2 hiked instead. This day was much more better than the previous one, everybody was already familiar with the steering basics and what made us much more faster. This time, it was our kayak that sank :))
In the wildest rapids on the river, I had a moment to choose the direction to continue - left or right - in the middle a huge boulder. I chose right because it looked more difficult, but unfortunately too late - we crashed to the boulder by the side of the kayak.

I remember seeing the boat turning over and Lucy falling to the river at the same moment as I. For a few seconds I was underwater being pushed by the current to the face of the rock. I managed to escape and then swiftly crawl-stroked to the floating upset boat. I was glad that I found Lucy at the side of the boat! I braked the boat, inverted it, got in. I pulled Lucy by her life jacket. Our guys that were below managed to save everything that left the kayak and floating down. I was excited, I jumped to the river once again, then opened a beer.

We enjoyed more of the beatiful landscape, the canyons high cliffs made me feel really like if I was in prehistoric ages. Even if it rained a little bit, also the sun showed ocasionally. In about one and half hour, we have finished our river cruise. Congratulations to every one of us that had the endurance to fight with the permanent chill, I bet that this will not prevent anybody to keep nice memories.
(Pictures later today)