High water Castleconnell run with UL girls

Girls on the Castleconnell

Last Saturday some of us Ladies from UL decided to paddle the Castleconnell on an unofficial girly day. The rest of the country was either snowed in or bone dry, but the CC had a nice bouncy level.

Timmy, Kim and Emma the Great

We got lots of sun, lots of water and Little Joe found his way back to his Mum!

S-bend on the Castleconnell

The S-Bend Rapid was flowing quite happily through the trees on both banks so we had to make sure there were no uncontrolled swims. The Castle Wall rapid was one big wave train with lots of push.

Wave trains

We ran the river without major incidents and got some eddy turn practise in. Thanks Jennifer (for a smooth boat rescue), Lilly (for the sound effects), Timmy (for the facial expressions) and Emma for the great little dance at the put in…

The Team

Squad Trials

Surfing Lil Gower

Due to very high water levels on the Shannon, the scheduled squad trials that were due to happen at Curragower Falls on Saturday and Sunday had to be postponed and moved to a one day event at Tarmonbarry Weir. Some of us took the opportunity to have a fun session at Lil Gower before heading to Tarmonbarry.

The following day we all gathered up at Tarmonbarry, where the high water levels had changed the feature into a very trashy flat wave that was quite hard to get into.

However, it was better than nothing and progression in the moves was seen over the day. I would like to take my hat off to all the juniors that braved the cold weather and the tricky circumstances and would like to let them know: don’t worry, freestyle competitions are nearly never like that!

Fortunately I managed to finally get onto the wave after a few tries (during my runs) and got enough points for first place in the competition. A series of competitions will now select 3 ladies out of the 6 that have made it onto the squad.  See here for more information on the new squad! 

A big thanks to the organisation and good luck to all the squad!