Relativity & Undercuts

I had grazed a sieve or an undercut a few times, and felt that inexorable pull toward oblivion, but I had never actually been through an undercut... until... that is, last Saturday on the Rio Embudo.

The weather was chilly and I might not have been paddling my absolute best, but the crew I was with was solid.  We had automatically set safety earlier at Cheese Grater and the same was true for this rapid in question, MJ's Shoulder.  A little bit of history for me and MJ's... this rapid is most often an auto-portage for me.  Not that it is particularly difficult; it's one of those were the fun to hazard ratio is really not working out well in the paddler's favor.  It's short, fast, manky, and the only move to be made is to keep it straight and punch two holes at the bottom.  Compounding the hazard side of the equation is the fact that at the very end there is a wall of rock constricting the channel by half from the right.  The second and final hole is here... and this rock is undercut.  I've run this rapid twice before, each without incident.  One of those times I was chasing a swimmer's boat downstream and looked over to see that I had just missed the portage eddy.

One of the best ways to learn and improve in an endeavor like kayaking is to embrace your own narcissistic tendencies and watch videos of yourself.  A huge thanks to Mike for the footage and to Atom for doing me the huge favor of emailing it to me.  The first thing I noticed was that I was not nearly as aggressive as I needed to be as I came through this rapid.  While I had been on line, I didn't have enough momentum nor forward posture and got completely stopped by the first hole.  My brace pivoted me to the right as I came out of it and right into the undercut wall.

Here is where my memory and what is shown on the video really diverge.  What I remember vividly is my bow slamming into the rock and everything pausing for a split second.  Next the whole 80 gallon boat felt like it was sucked down and under the rock.  I even recall a slurping sound.  I could feel the boat appear to be pushed down along the rock as I was hoping it was going down river.  The rock was scraping along the top of the boat and my elbow pads as I was smashed on my back-deck with my arms raised in a high brace in front of me, trying to keep my face off the rock.  At one point, I think instinctually to preserve my right shoulder, I let go of the paddle with my right hand.

This all happened painfully slowly.  Slowly enough to consider pulling my skirt and swimming.  But then it was suddenly over.  Fortunately I found my paddle again with my right hand and back-deck rolled up and easily made it into the eddy.

In the video though, this whole rock situation only lasted a couple of seconds at best.  And it was only another couple before I rolled up too.

Is time compressing or expanding?  Was I speeding up?  Are there bizarre ripples in the relativistic flow of space-time that exist under undercut rocks in rivers... or just this particular undercut... or how about simply under rocks?  Between rocks?

I just know that I'm thankful that the only damage was the hole torn into my sprayskirt by the underside of that rock.  My elbow got a good hit, and my shoulder has felt a bit strained in the days since, but it's getting better.  Now I can't wait to see how I feel about running her again... eventually.