Two calls on technical support came in really handy this week. Thanks to Shorty and Rob respectively for the assistance below;

I went for the long overdue computer rebuild last weekend. In the end i did it with Shorty, who knows that stuff, so I was in safe hands. I was kinda looking forward to just wading in and seeing how it went - (thouroughly expecting to need shortys technical suport at some point) but it worked out well I think doing it with someone who knows their stuff. The hardware side seemed manageable, but i got pretty lost with the software stuff. The new machine is up and running and should now mean I can do video stuff for the site as well.

The jefe has also sprung a leak. having been reassured that LL plastic welds really well, I stripped the boat down ready for Rob to work his magic welding it together. He used the following method - clean the split - drill small holes at the end of the split - 'stitch weld' using a soldering iron - melt new  pastic into the split (from cockpit rim) +repeat for the other side. having watched him do it I can recommend his services at the very reasonble rate of a few pints per hour! I'd be pretty happy to use the same method myself, now  having watched someone who knows how to do it. The iron didnt look like it was in danger of going straight through the plastic and needed firm application to get the effect in the picture. Theoretically the weld should be as strong as the rest of the plastic now. There is only one way to find out...

Im gonna take a playboat out. cant decide which what style so have put it to the vote. ill then take out the style chosen and blog the results....

vote here

Ambition is a funny thing in my kayaking. Lose it, and I tend to find it harder to motivate to go out. Lose the motivation, and my skills drop off. Lose the skills and the ambition drops further. A vicious circle.

Pretty much throughout my time kayaking there has always been something there as an ambition to reach. In the early days is was getting down the harder local and scottish rivers like the  Upper Duddon, Nevis and others.

Watching videos also instilled the ambition of 'I want to do that'. I remember watching old videos like '5 Idaho classics', 'A breath of whitewater' and others, and wondering whether i'd ever get on that kind of stuff, really wanting to do it. Looking back it was the ambition to do it that made it happen. Time spent in a boat, repeating the familiar runs endlessly, learning, watching, learning. The North Fork of The Payette was  the river that inspired me in each of those films. I've done it twice now, and although i'd love to make it down the 15 mile class 4/5 rollercoaster again, my attention has turned elsewhere.

There have been many other ambitions, rapids I'd portaged an dwish i'd run, sections I'd come away from, new countries to visit, different video to inspire. The details are unimportant, but the ambition has, more or less, been constantly there.

rainchasers has sucked in quite a lot of the focus over the last year or two, but I'm at a transition now. I need the next big focus to arrive.  There is one ambition lurking in the subconscious, but I dont feel ready for it. The logistics of time and finance are against me, and form a convienient excuse. Ultimately though, im just scared,  and I cant see how id get to the point where I'd feel comfortable and confident getting on this run. Maybe thats the point though.... I didnt fell either comfortable or confident when I got on the North fork...

So I'll settle on another goal. Hopefully get that done, see where things are after that...

jacks covered it, but here are some more pics of the upper esk in lowish water. Well worth the walk in, and worthwhile without two harder double drops at the top.

I think that's what it comes down to. Thats how I justify it, explain it. That's how I get back on after hearing how a seemingly innocuous rapid can cause a fatality like the one on the Crake last week. I guess rationally we all know that a set of circumstances could come together and there will be an accident It could be on the  river, road or anywhere else.

I paddled the rapid in question a couple of days after the accident, trying to retrieve the kit lost by the group while trying to affect a rescue. It was an odd circumstance, and the mood was serious, but I still couldn't resist messing about with on the water. Playing near the spot a man drowned at, then moving down to look for more lost kit.