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Kayaking in Poland: I´m sunk

 

My buddy Lech grew up in the half rural, half Warsaw bedroom community of Sochaczew.  We spend the Summer Solstice weekend near here kayaking an unrunable river, the raging Rawka.  When the 12 of us set out our goal is to make our way down 21km of the river, but soon discover our river is really a slow moving creek with literally hundreds of fallen trees blocking our progress.  Since we celebrated the midsummer until 3am the previous night with plenty of beer and vodka you can imagine how this also slowed us down.  

Then there is the small detail about our leaky kayaks.  Not long into our journey a couple kayaks start taking on water, mine being one of them.  Since a boat full of water doesn´t steer very well I get pretty pissed off bouncing my way down the river.  I mean I´m the professional here and the boat makes me look like a rookie.  Embarrassing. 

As me and my copilot Magda are lifting the boat over yet another log I tell her to jump to the front to shift the water weight but as soon as she does we hear the unmistakeable sound of cracking fiberglass.  We both get back in but now our pesky leak is a full-blown hole and things start going titantic fast.

We unload our waterlogged bags and Magda gets into another boat.  I manage to paddle to the next waterfall portage and as I bring it into shore the last centimeter of deck vanishes under the murky brown water and the whole stern of the boat goes under.  No more kayaking today.

When we call the company to come pick up their shitty boats it becomes clear who we´re dealing with.  Lech calls and the woman has to run around to find a sober driver because Kowalski is already drunk and Novak just started.  This is redneck Poland where white socks and sandals aren´t just a fashion statement, they´re a way of life.



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One response to “Kayaking in Poland: I´m sunk”

  1. Lena says:

    Wow. What an experience. It will go into your treasure chest of memories of a lifetime for sure!

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