DCUCanoe.ie

Our first river trip of the year without any swims was attended by Eanna, Duff, Ger, Lucinda, Niamh and myself.

The day started without our trips officer and highly acclaimed trip report writer, Ciaran O'Reilly. This left us with only one car and a rather complicated shuttle arrangement. Fortunately for us Adrian Barber came to the rescue and gave us a hand, Thanks Aido!

Once we got to Lucan weir, It turned out that I had no deck, so after some abuse from people who thought I was a bit bonkers by going to paddle in December without a deck and only a pair of shorts to keep me warm, I managed to get a lift down to the ICU with some guy from Tulamore Canoe club and Conor Ryan lent me a deck there, thanks to both of them too!

So eventually, we managed to get on the river. the ICU had a charity paddle organised to raise funds for a paddler injured in this years liffey descent. The highlight of the day was to set a new record for biggest raft over Lucan weir. This was quickly broken when at the first attempt, 11 kayaks made it over together. Eventually 36 kayaks were to raft over together making for a rather impressive sight with surprisingly little carnage! The comic relief and carnage was provided (as one would expect) by a Canadian, in this case somebody decided it would be fun to run boxes solo in his Canadian. Needless to say much laughter was had after he swam on the top box.

After the fun at Lucan Weir we all carried on. Annaliva saw a snappy T-Rescue from Lucinda, saving us what could have been the only swim of the day. We had some successfully ferry gliding practice along the way to Wrens nest, which saw dry hair through the run, as well as Eanna showing us how not to behave at a playspot when he knocked me out of the hole during the middle of my supper impressive paddle guitar!

After that it was back to the clubhouse for some more T-Rescue Practice, and some warm food in the Angular Rest.