EUCC Online

Exeter University Canoe Club

“Une femme dans le bateau!”
On the 7th June, 18 of EUCC’s members headed out to the French Alps for two weeks of sun, paddling and beer! After much faffing over packing the van, we set off for Dover for a fairly uneventful ferry crossing, until we arrived in Calais and were called back to the car deck. The majority of the team managed this successfully, except one. When our queue started to move off we decided we would have to wait for Jess once we were off. Having tried to explain to a number of Frenchmen in fluorescent vests that we had left a girl on the ferry, Josh decided to help me out using some of his best French. “Une femme dans le bateau” he said. “Une femme?!….Dans le bateau!?!” repeated the Frenchman with a look on his face as if we had thrown her overboard. “Oui” I replied. “Oh”. After 10 minutes of anxious waiting Jess appeared on the ferry surrounded by the ferry’s crew who thought it was hilarious. From Calais we set off on the 1000km drive to Embrun.
“Come to France you say, beautiful sunshine you say…”

The club bus pulled up at the Rab campsite just a few minutes off Emily May’s prediction, meaning that she won the traditional sweepstake. And as we got out it began to tip it down. The Durance was very high, and when we asked the raft guide about the levels we were told that all the rivers were high and would not drop off in the next two weeks… With our spirits dampened (excuse the pun), we headed off for a run from the Rab down to Embrun. Feeling refreshed after our paddle, we set up camp and got out the stubbies.
Swimming!
Our first paddling day we spent at L’Argentiere Slalom Course, where Trip Sec Dickie gave a guided tour with a few fabricated facts about the lake, which “was built to house the 1978 Canoe Polo World Championships”. After recapping throw lines and safety we all went for a swim down the course to practice throwing lines for each other. Some had to swim further than others (Phil), but after a while everyone got the hang of it. All ready to fish people out, we started sending people down it, which resulted in some more throw line practice, but thankfully less than anticipated!
“Good job it’s a nice eddy”
Over the next few days we paddled pretty much every section of the Durance, as river levels were still high, and we wanted the less experienced paddlers to get used to the big and bouncy Alpine rivers. On one particular descent of the Sunshine Run, we found ourselves approaching a big cushion wave, which led into a nasty eddy full of recirculating trees on one side, and a cliff on the other. A few of us ferry glided across, but with fears that the others may not make it, they set off on a hike to find a better place to cross. They ended up climbing a cliff, and Hugh and I were sat in an eddy for long enough for us to make this short film. You’ll hear Hugh demonstrating how to do “a Ben Ames/Russell”. This refers to the time (earlier in the day) they watched the club paddles float straight past them at the St Clement Slalom Course. Apparently they decided it wasn’t worth picking them up…

“EUCC REPRESENT!”
Due to the time spent in certain eddies and portaging, we managed to miss the Student Boater Cross, but still headed out for the party. After taking advice from people there, we went for pizzas and sat in a pub with a French man who got on well with Emily!
Back at the slalom course we met our Scottish counterpart, Edinburgh University Canoe Club (EUCC), who appreciated our Party Bus stash. When we eventually tried to head to the party, we were stopped by the rising water levels, which had flooded the track.
“Confluence – the flowing together of two or more streams”

With the weather conditions and water levels being less than ideal we had not managed to do any particularly demanding rivers, so we seized the opportunity of a slightly drier day, and half the group headed out to do some via ferrata, and Em, Hugh, Dickie, Andy, Crazy, Phil, Noah and Pete headed out to look at the river Gyr. A few of us decided to paddle it, and Crazy took a nasty swim but came out unscathed, to see everyone else running down the bank to fish his boat out of the barrage. After quite a long rescue mission we re-grouped but had lost one of our members, with a worse than average sense of direction. Emily had somehow managed to walk down the Gyr, and then turn around and walk up the Onde. You might ask how…we did. She got the t-shirt she deserved. Later in the day we headed to the Gyronde, which was a fun grade 3 boulder garden that ends up at L’Argentiere Slalom Course, where we ended our day’s paddling.
Hugh – “I can cartwheel any boat in the club… almost”

On our last paddling day we headed out to Briancon Gorge for a run down with the more experienced members of the club. This was a great section of continuous grade 3, which everyone enjoyed. We had one hairy moment when Phil decided to head for the buttresses which had caught out his wife the previous year, but after a few moments pinning, and a couple of roll attempts, all was well! After this we headed back to L’Argentiere for a quick paddle, where I think it’s fair to say Hugh got slightly overconfident. When attempting to cartwheel the Java in the top hole on the course, “something went wrong”, which led to hours of driving up and down the Durance looking for the Java, until eventually someone spotted it pinned against the back. Chase boat extraordinaires, Andy and Pete, trekked through the woods, to fish the boat out. There was time to pose for a photo…

It was an awesome trip, and I can’t wait to get back on a river!

Thank you to all the people that made it happen…

• The outgoing committee, particularly Em, Dickie and Hugh who put lots of time into organising the trip.
• AS Watersports for supplying us with some shiny new kit, and an awesome discount night before we went.
• For Your Eyes People who did a brilliant job designing and supplying our stash.