Kayaking on the Nile

I am taking kayaking lessons from an extremely responsible and diligent safety kayaker named Luke. Luke owns a banana farm, and two kayaks - but only one kayaking skirt and only one paddle. We borrow a second skirt and paddle from what seems to be a set of gear shared by all the instructors. The borrowed paddle is broken on one side but Luke is not impeded by this. Our learning schedule is often constrained by external demands for the public gear, but I'm pretty okay with this. Its fun to try to posture against the guides for it. Luke can roll without a paddle, so he ends up using only his hands while I use the lone paddle. It is consistently a little bit absurd and all very entertaining.

I learned to roll in the still water beside Bugagali Falls and then graduated to playing in the fast water under the falls. In the fast water I was not able to keep my balance and I couldn't roll to save my life. I swam after every attempt. Luke decided the lesson was over after five swims - each swim is quite an effort to recover from with only one paddle. I took a break but was unsatisfied with my progress and rallied the gear to practice rolling. Eventually Luke joined in a friend's kayak and took me to the moving water again where I rolled many times and swam only once. I remember the first moment when I realized that kayaking wasn't simply about learning to rolling and it was really quite thrilling.

We started early the next morning, but in my sleep I had somehow lost the ability to roll. I took many swims even in still water and this frustrated me greatly. We went back to basics, and the ability came back as I woke up. We entered a class 3 rapid from the middle and I got the hang of it soon enough. I usually took more than one try to roll out after tipping, but I always recovered and was forced to swim only once - which I describe later. I eventually graduated to the top of the class 3, and I finished the day by approaching the rapid inverted and succeeded in briefly surfing the main crest of the rapid. I eventually tipped and was too exhausted to roll. "Swim 'arrrd Kenneee" yelled Luke as he went after the abandoned gear. I realized that Bugagli Falls is just down river and I had some distance to cover to get to shore. I'm an OK swimmer (despite failing youth orange level) but the drag caused by a long-sleeve shirt, a life jacket, and a large neoprene skirt around your waist (shaped like a parachute) makes swimming through current an exhausting task. I made it to shore quite fatigued.

It was all very much fun, but we ended so I could go to Jinja and meet a distant relative. I developed a wicked sunburn and I attributed my nausea to all the Nile water which I had swallowed. Eventually I put the two together, diagnosed myself with heat stroke. I'll have to take a few days off now. I have never seen waterproof sunscreen in Africa, and you can't fit a hat under the kayaking helmet so it seems the sun may win this war and it will control how much more kayaking I can handle. We'll see - I have some ideas for mitigations.

I've got my leg into the kayaking community here as I have now befriended almost all the local guides. They're all very much fun but in African fashion they party, drink, and smoke too much too often. The guys have been encouraging me to tail behind them as they guide the daily commercial rafting trips down the Nile. I can crawl into the safety raft for big rapids which I can't handle (there are many class 5s and 6s) and will run those that I am comfortable with. What an experience and what a chance to learn. Definitely worth spending some more time in Jinja to play this one out.

An American girl watched my lesson and took some pictures when she noticed I traveled alone, so pictures will follow. I've put in this one of the dude fishing cause I think it is cool and he was a cool guy.