Introduction to Moving Water, River Dee, Llangollen, 23rd March, 2011.

Photography by Chris Parker (scroll down for pics).

A planned trip to the river Dee at Llangollen. David, Ann & I had been keeping diaries prior to the trip to help Chris Parker with his PhD research. On the day Ann stopped off at my house to pick  up James's Master for Chris to use on the Dee and Ann and I formed a  small convoy en-route to the put in.

We all met up at Llangollen  at about 10:30 AM and separately walked/ran from the put-in car park  over the bridge and into town to spend our 20p's at the toilets there. We unloaded all the boats & kit, left Kathryn on guard duty, while we drove off to the get out, left all the cars there except for Chris's as we piled into his car and back to the start to set off.

River level low but we thought do-able, just, so off we set, David & Kathryn in David's open, Ann in her shortish kayak (but still the longer of her two), Chris in a kayak and me soloing in my open.

We did a bit  of eddying in and out at the start and I tried ferry gliding my canoe  across the river too. Then we set off downstream ... lots of bobbly bits and with the low water, it rapidly became apparent we were going to  ground in places and bump some rocks, at least the ones we couldn't see  and maybe some that we could see too. There were a few runs where the  canoes ground to a halt and we had to get out and pull them to deeper  water but progress was being made and it was a glorious day.

About 1:00PM Ann started asking when we might stop for food ... I think we  finally stopped in a nice sunny place at about 2:00PM. Shortly after the lunch stop Chris had a problem, the Master was holed ... a biggish S  shaped split immediately below the seat ... we stopped and discussed  options ... One thought was to strap it on top of the front of my canoe and I'd paddle solo from the back, not the best of options as David  & Kathryn had already had three or four swims by then and I'd be  losing a fair bit of control of mine by sitting at the back ... plus we'd then have to put 3 folks in David's boat and they were grounding  badly enough as it was. Next option, see if we could patch the hole with duct tape and tow it, so we tried that ... Kathryn joined me as bow  crew in my boat, we tied my throw rope to the bow of the Master and  towed it behind my canoe by the expedient of kneeling on the rope to hold it ... the theory being that if the kayak got snagged I could release it easily by lifting my knee.

Kathryn and I watched David & Chris go swimming in front of us on another  bobbly run and then we glided past towing the Master and eddied out to  wait. Ann was doing brilliantly in her kayak but finding it hard work,  I'm sure that Ann had to put in more paddling effort on the day than any of the rest of us.

We worked out that all our woes could be attributed to Chris's heavy-weight pastie ... David & Kathryn's multiple swims all occured whilst they were ferrying Chris's lunch ... Chris then ate the pastie and almost  immediately his Kayak was holed ... Kathryn transferred to my boat and  Chris (still containing the dreaded pastie) transferred to David's boat  ... and they swam. Only Ann & I safely avoided pastie transportation ... and only Ann & I didn't swim ... Q.E.D.

An option was to drop the Master off on the bank under a bridge and to try and recover  it later, but it wasn't towing too badly so we ploughed onwards. Then  the duct tape rubbed off and it settled
lower in the water,  thankfully the rear airbags were still keeping it afloat. Occasionally  it heeled over and angled across applying a brake, later it turned right over and it seemed to be easier to tow upside down. We ploughed slowly  onwards. After a while David & Chris offered to take a turn towing  the "submarine" ... and wow, Kathryn & I suddenly found we had 3  extra gears as our “greyhound” was released from the trap ... wheeee!

We came to a weir and looked at it, it should be full river width but only the RHS section was running water, the gentler LHS was high & dry.  The RHS had a big standing wave the bottom and not knowing if the weir  had a kicker wall at the bottom of the slope we elected to portage over  the dry side.

Kathryn is brilliant at rock spotting and avoidance using the bow rudder method as well as being an excellent paddler too.  Kathryn is welcome to crew in my boat again any time.

We finally  reached the get out just before dark ... 8hrs paddling, 15 miles  travelled. We loaded the cars and David & Kathryn set off for home.  Ann, Chris & I set off back to Llangollen to retrieve his car and  Chris with the longest journey to do also struck out for home. Ann & I went to the pub in Trevor and liver & onions never tasted sooo  good, Ann's fish & chips looked magic too.

Then home .... and zzzzzzzz.

David mentioned a company in Fenton that can weld (some) plastics so I'll  chase them up & see if can see if the Master can be fixed. I think  this is the place ... http://www.accplastics.co.uk/index.html

Here are the links to the 2 sections of the Dee that we ran from the UK Rivers Guide ...

http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/index....=article&id=499:nwales-deellangollen&catid=29&Itemid=122

http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/index....=article&id=503:nwales-deenewbridge&catid=29&Itemid=122

And here are Chris’s pictures ...