Preface: If you want anything useful from this post, skip down to "Private Lesson with Jeff West"; or better yet, arrange such a lesson.

Okay, I need to confess. I went boating last weekend. I was at U. Tenn. to give a talk on Wednesday 09/09/09. And, since I got that far, why not a couple hours drive to some water. I went to the Nanty putin and right behind me pulled up a pickup with three young men from the Chattanooga area - Tyler, Andy, and Dan (in order of experience from very, to 2nd time on a river of any sort). I helped with shuttle and, in turn, they let me join their group. The run was good, mostly without carnage, which was remarkable considering Dan's n00b status. But he displayed excellent balance and poise, and followed instruction very well. The only thing was that these guys (even Tyler) were in cotton. So they complained some about being cold (well?!!). Anyway, the only carnage was that Dan flipped on Lesser Wesser, had three good roll attempts, and then bailed and TOTALLY self rescued. The other two were playing, flipping and rolling up without difficulty. They were a good group, and I hope to paddle with them again.

Saturday I was in SE Tennessee, boarding at the White Water Inn at the intersection of 64 and 411. It is a nice place, though I did feel like I was contributing a large amount of incentive money to bolster the local economy. My objectives were - not in order - (1) scout the Ocoee in prep for my Sunday lesson; (2) warm up in prep for same; (3) find a greasy spoon for breakfast. I went into Cleveland and found a restaurant that was just packed, and figured that's the place. It was! I believe it's called Rebels, and I recommend it highly.

After breakfast, I went to the Ocoee and scouted and scouted Grumpy's. I spent an hour watching every kayak and seeing the lines and consequences. I tried to scout a bit more of the river, but then decided that the way to do this is on a raft. So I got on the 1 pm ride with Ocoee Outdoors. Having never rafted before, I found it terrifying at first (that's just the way I am with new things). But eventually I got comfortable with it. Still, seeing the rapids from that perspective did absolutely nothing to calm my fears - quite the opposite actually.


Private lesson with Jeff West.

I was scheduled to meet him at the public takeout, Sunday morning, 8:30 a.m. I was there at 8:00, giving enough time by myself to work into my usual level of high anxiety. In the first 2 hours on flatwater, Jeff taught me many things that I did not know - many many things! It was great! I now understand a lot more about the various paddle strokes, and have a solid workout plan for flatwater. However, I was such a bundle of nerves, that I was only hitting about 1 in 4 practice rolls :-( .

It was clear that I was in no condition for Grumpy's, so Jeff took me to Jump Rock, and instructed me on peel outs and eddy turns, which he had me drill. Again, a lot that I didn't know, but it is clearly going to take me a lot of Elkhorn (etc.) practice to get this right.

When he felt I was comfortable enough (or not), he brought me down the rest of the river. We sneaked Hollywood on the left chute. I remember that Surprise was surprisingly easy (in the raft it seemed 'orrible!). The others went well on down to Table Saw. There, the option was portage, or flotilla. Correction, portage was no option :-). However, before we went down, we were treated to a view of an unfortunate kayaker taking the wrong line, flipping on the first wave, swimming, trying to self rescue boat and all, and almost getting washed into the BAD left side of Diamond Splitter. It was an object lesson on a number of accounts, not least being the importance of a good peel out to avoid hitting the first wave wrong.

The flotilla through Table Saw was amazing! Jeff steered both boats through with the paddle in his left hand, and calmly described the features of the rapid as if I was a tourist in a bus.

From that point on, it was a SWEET run. One thing I learned is how to set up my angle in a rapid to paddle to an eddy - something about which I obviously never had any idea before. I also never realized it could be so easy to paddle diagonally across a class III rapid. For the first time on bigger water, I didn't just point and shoot. Lotsa fun!!

The last rapid is Powerhouse. Again, the choice is to portage ... Nah! Why would you portage Powerhouse, when you have essentially the whole of Parkersville Lake as a recovery pool. Having got through the first big wave, I flipped myself on the second. It was time for a combat roll. But, alas, the roll just wasn't quite there that day.

That lesson with Jeff West taught me so much, that he promised to send a list. I had a great time on the Middle Ocoee. But I need much more practice before considering the shallower stuff in the first mile or so. The good news is that I know exactly what to practice in class II rapids, and even on flatwater, to get me to that point. And, of course, I gotta get my roll back!
Chris S

Chris Schardl