Friday 29 June 2012

Arrival in Peru

A sunny day in London
After our battle at the check-in desk at Gatwick with Air Europa we finally managed to get the kayaks onto the flight to Lima! The first drama of the trip happened only moments after arrival when we found one of the paddle bags had been mangled by some heavy handed baggage handling. The result was 3 destroyed Werners, luckily our spare paddles.
The work of some heavy handed baggage handlers
It also turns out that roof racks on cars are not as common as we expected in Lima. This resulted in some hilarious methods for transporting kayaks.


Getting creative with transport
It feels great to have arrived!! Next stop is the Pozuzo valley for what we hope to be some great Jungle Boating.

Tuesday 26 June 2012

New sponsor!


With only 2 days to go before we set off we are happy to announce a new sponsor! Canon have given us an all singing all dancing D20 waterproof shockproof camera for us to trial. First impressions are great and it will be fun see how well it copes with 3 months on the water, up the mountains and in desolate desert and humid jungle!

Wednesday 13 June 2012

Testing our new boats

Having picked up our boats last weekend, Alby and I were keen to test them out on some classic white water. We headed to the beach in Devon for a spot of picturesque outfiting on the sand, before a quick surf over lunch at high tide in Saunton. Early indications were good, both boats fairing well and fitting their new owners like very expensive gloves, but a real river was needed to challenge the boats! With plenty of sunlight and plenty of rain in the middle of June, of we went to paddle the East Lyn with some of the club. Whilst this may be the first Imperial club trip on the East Lyn, Alby and I put the nomad and mamba through their paces in the gorge section - the new small mamba fairing well on all the drops (so responsive!) whilst the nomad suffered it's first cosmetic damage in the form of a dent in the nose... Emerging out of the gorge we slowly met up with the rest of the team, then paddled out to sea to the sound of the nearby Llama festival's jungle beats with sunset not far behind. A perfect end to Derf and the mamba's first outfitting!* Almost as perfect for Alby and the nomad. Photo's to follow.

*(except for that short OBE and immediate self rescue...)

Here is a short edit of some of Tom Haywood's GoPro footage from the gorge:

Friday 8 June 2012

Planning

With less than 3 weeks to go our planning has ramped up a gear - good session last night sorting out our expedition first aid kits and unpacking all our juicy new kit! Thanks to Kent Canoes for their generous help.