PaddlePlus would like to thank all the paddlers,
(members, friends and new friends) who joined us for the Hot Potato paddle on Sunday 15th November 2009.

Steven Walker reports on the day: The day started out with everybody meeting at the centre at half 8 in the morning (on a Sunday)! With a quick social, the boats were all loaded up and people were getting changed, ready to head off to Aylestone lock. With the water level being quite nice, (thanks Anton for booking it with the met office) and the weather perfect, we unloaded the boats, did a warm up and on we got.
The group was split up, for one group to go round the backwater shooting Aylestone weir and the others sticking to the canal. Arriving at the first weir we stopped for a break whilst the others caught up from the backwater.

Again another problem for a couple of paddlers who took another swim on this weir but luckily Andy was to the rescue and got water in his nice dry boat. With being slightly ahead of schedule we decided to take a tea break and have a snack. After everybody was refuelled on tea and sweets we took it nice and steady to Abbey Park which proved a problem for Anton as he got trapped by a bike in the river. The weir claimed two more swimmers and with the water levels up there was quite a nice little stopper at the bottom of the weir for people to play on.



This was the only one, of the 5 weirs, where everybody stayed dry. Moving on to the biggest weir of the day, the mighty power station weir outside of the Walkers Stadium. This weir seemed to cause havoc for a couple of people but I won't shame you Lawrence, Stacey and Flick. Well done to Mark though, as it was the first time he had shot this weir. Stacey and Flick had a nice swim in the Horizon and during the rescue Nathan's head was the only thing out the water as he tried to lift the boat. After the swimmers were back in and had hot chocolate we were off down the mile straight to Evans weir, also known as Kirby and West weir.

After we were all done it was on to the final weir, swans nest, which unfortunately somebody else added there name to the swans nest swimmers list. Again with a nice stopper on it people decided to play including me but this was interrupted when Derek decided to try and sink me and then I was stuck in the stopper and had to be nudged off. Thanks DerekJ. With the last weir done we made our way back to the centre where hot potatoes were waiting for us. Big thanks for all the people that participated and the backup crew/cooks for transporting and cooking for us. Was a brilliant day and I most enjoyed it.
Steven Walker

If you have any photos from this years paddle that you would like to share then please pass them to Andy Oughton for putting into the gallery.

If you missed the Hot Potato paddle this year then look out for the date for next year, which will be announced late summer 2010, or join us on the Cold Turkey Paddle, Summer Solstice, or Fool moon Paddles.