It seemed a good idea at the time to sign up for the Foundation Rescue and Safety course at Allanton, whilst sitting in a warm sitting room in front a computer. The reality was a cold Saturday morning standing pushing Bob’s van stuck in mud at the side of the Whiteadder River in Berwickshire and lifting off wet kayaks and tramping through mud to the river’s edge with them. This was forecast to be the stormiest day of the year and the wind was starting to pick up – the south coast had already been battered with 100mph winds and it was heading north fast (well at 100 miles per hour anyway).
Fuelled with a snickers bar and banana with coffee after Gutbusters it was a case of dry suit on with layers underneath, wet boots on, PFD on, knife ready and a quick practice at throwing ropes as far as we could into the river. It was then ok one of you in river and two on bank to throw ropes. Mike you go first. Mike toddles up to the bend in the river and falls in floating down making myself big (size of an elephant) waving my arms, noticing people on the bank fussing with ropes and shouting ‘we are not ready yet’ as I go floating past at speed and heading for the inevitable delights of the ‘Gobbler’ weir downstream – a rope flew over me and I grabbed it over my river bank shoulder so it didn’t strangle me and I was pulled into the muddy bank and safety.
I was in the river and that is more or less how I remained for the rest of the day – in a kayak and then capsized under the kayak in the brown water waiting for rescue, or in the brown water rescuing others, and finding out that wearing neoprene gloves causes you to half save the person before the kayak slips away from you and just as they are grabbing a welcome breath they are plunged into the water again mid breath. Fortunately people can’t swear when they are spluttering when they surface after that.
Bob had a great job – he sat in a chair on the riverbank and shouted at us – ‘That isn’t a bloody raft, Never give up, you idiot’ – and that was to his wife – we got much worse abuse. We were getting colder and colder and we were wearing dry suits – I would have hated to be in anything less. It was also exhausting as it was a continuous process of falling in and dragging yourself onto a kayak or pulling someone’s kayak up or paddling to stop heading down to GobblerVille and its aerated water traps.
Lunch consisted of banana, tuna sandwich and some welcome warm hot chocolate from Kim’s pink flask – I sat in one canoe and everyone sat in the other one I did explain it was my wife’s flask but they looked uncertain. Lunch passed far too quickly and it was open canoe afternoon with the wind increasing and funnelling down the cliffs. A welcome shot of Bob’s Laphroiag gave Bob the chance to now explain why alcohol was a bad idea when cold. I like the illustrative method – or perhaps just liked the whisky.
The open canoe was less successful for me – especially getting back into them – I did manage it to find that there was more water in the canoe than in the river and I now looked like I was in a floating (just) bathtub. Being rescued by someone else had a similar effect except there were two of us now in their floating bathtub. Doing the ‘curl’ with another open canoe was interesting – standing up in my canoe and lifting the wet canoe up whilst the wet person that had been in it is now holding onto my gunwhale to balance me – empty the canoe and tip it back on the water – job done and I surprisingly did not end up in the water in this process – which by now surprised everyone else too.
Life saving with Annie was interesting in that the kiss of life is no longer taught – you just pump away in between her nipples to the beat of the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive” (or “Nellie the Elephant”, not by the Bee Gees) and send everyone else off for proper medical care (999 or 112 on mobile) and remember which side of the river you are on as it is not only embarrassing having an ambulance stuck on the other side of the river as your patient is expiring from lack of care.
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