"Jett Power" wrote in message ...
Hi,

Three friends and I have booked a couple of canadian-style open canoes for a
long weekend soon, but I've had mixed views from some experienced canoeists
about whether we, as novices, might be biting off a little more than we can
chew.

Fitness isn't really the issue - a couple of the guys seem to think we might
be putting ourselves in danger, given the fact that we don't have much
experience.

If you've had little or no experience of paddling an open boat in
moving water then you may be in for a shock, so a bit of tuition on
the basics: entering and leaving the current, eddies, leaning, would
be a good idea.

For example, if you do capsize, you need to know what do, you can't
swim to the bank towing a 15ft canoe in any sort of current. You need
to know how to use bow and stern lines to effect a rescue.

You're fairly unlikely to come to real personal harm (assuming summer
levels on the Tweed) though you are still taking a risk. There's a
real chance, however, of loosing your kits/boats. Your lack of
experience would really casue you problems if you did have an
'incident' and, for example, had to recover a pinned boat or a
swimmer.

That's where at least one experienced paddler would come in handy. You
could, say nine times out of ten, manage this trip and have a great
time, but when something does go wrong that where experience counts,
so I couldn't honestly recommend that you undertake a trip of this
nature without one 'river savvy' paddler.

On the guide font - there are a few rapids and weirs, let discretion
be the better part of valour and portage if in any doubt. All I know
of, so this is by no means exhaustive, is the rapid a Mackerstoun and
the weir at Kelso. Walk them both!