Vincent's Last Post

Hey my name is Vincent and Keeners has been an experience of a lifetime! In the morning of BWBT (Big Water Beatdown Thursday if you were wondering) of week 2 we swam McCoy's. On the same day we did some SRT skills. We practiced gear entrapments and foot entrapments. I did well with both skills and it was fun! TC had us stick our foot in a rock and we fell down and went back up. For our gear entrapments Joel held us down and we had to escape out of all of our gear. It gave my breath-holding skills to a test.

Intentionally swimming coli was probably the most EPIC swim I ever did. I swam through the meat of Big Kahuna! For the second competition Friday we split into 2 groups. One group was on S-bend (small hole on the middle channel) the other group was on Chopping Block (wave on the main channel in the butcher's knife rapid). I got a 0 on my ride but it was still fun! I am still learning how to compete and for this competition I will change my strategy so that I do the tricks I can definitely do first, and then progress to the tricks I am not as good at.

Monday was a good day on the middle channel. On Tuesday, we went on the main and we played this game that we had to get out of our boat in complex eddies. That eddy was on the Lorne above the boof. I didn't succeed so I swam the boof. I pushed my boat so I wouldn't get any water in it. I went over and had 10 seconds of downtime in the boils below the boof. Later that day we went to pushbutton (small wave on the Lorne) . I got one of my goals is to land a blunt! Now I am shooting to get my blunt more consistently. Our final race day was great. Our first race was on McCoy's and I place 4th with a time of 1:10. We had to catch the hero eddy and touch a stick in order to continue. Hero Eddy is a small eddy above Phil's Hole. The line I took was hugging the river right side and there was a sneak to avoid right side Phil's. My line below Phil's wasn't the fastest. I took the smallest waves and was a bit too far left to hit the football eddy with the fastest line.

Me below little trickle on the middle channel

I am sad that there are only 2 days left of keeners but I am also glad that I will be able to carry these skills to my home rivers. I am proud with all the progress I made and I hope to get my bow stall because I am really close. I also hope to get an airscrew because I am halfway there. I had stellar coaches such as Devyn Scott, Stephen Wright, Joel Kowalski, Tyler Curtis and Juanito.   I am sad that keeners is coming to an end but I am glad that I could bring back all of these skills back home. I made a lot of new friends, gained confidence, learned new skills with life and kayaking.

See you next year!

Vincent Packer