River Tees Nov '12. Salmon leap falls. I'd come through the technical bit just fine, and I could see my mate in the pool below. Just one straight 3' drop and I'm done. At this point I'm drifting sideways, and hadn't noticed the rock just underwater....
I capsized and was pinned with me facing up river, the water beating down on me. It took 3-4 attempts to pull the grab loop on my spraydeck, but then I was stuck in the boat as all my weight was in my right leg which was on the bottom side of the boat. This coupled with the unrelenting weight of water truly frightened the living daylights out of me. No matter what I was stuck. I could see that my head wasn't far from the surface of the water which was frustrating! I was running out of air and had involuntarily taken my 4th mouthful of water when I gave an incredible hulk type effort. My ankle got a severe bending that took weeks to heal.
It's not over yet... the water swept me under the boat. I was actually pinned on 2 rocks and I was swept between these, knocking my head on the boat. Thankfully there were no strainers in there.
I swam down to Tim and got out of the river. My boat was right at the edge of the river, we just had to reach down and clip a line on, it was that close. It took a further hour to free the boat (slightly dented)
Next day I had to lead a group on the lower sections of the river. Even my eye lashes hurt. I think i must have tensed every muscle to get out of that boat. I was in shock for a good month.
As a result I'm not doing much paddling any more. Flat water and easy white water is a bit dull, and I've lost my bottle a bit on big stuff as a result!
That's why I'm doing more cycling!