Celebrating River Nile in Style

By: Bruce Amp

Kayakers gather to show off how they maximize the river’s waves and rapids, as well as appreciate the Nile.

Last week, kayakers from around the world participated in the annual Nile River Festival, which took place over four days outside Jinja. This was the 10^th year the community river festival has been held. Hundreds of spectators attended the festival to watch kayakers take on the challenging rapids and share in the appreciation of the river. The festival, organized by Kayak the Nile, in Association with the Nile River Explorers and Visit Jinja, include four stages. After each days’ competition, spectators and competitors headed to the Nile River Explorers and the Hairy Lemon for live music, food, drinks and huge party.

Two – time Nile River festival Champion and co-owner of Kayak the Nile, Sam Ward said: “the festival brings together an eclectic mix of people from the nearby villages, Kampala, all over Uganda and the world, celebrating the river as the kayaking and non-kayaking community comes together.”

For Zachary Clemence, his first time attending the festival was “an amazing event. There are hundreds of people out here by the river enjoying the beautiful day, watching world-class kayakers paddle, Couldn’t get much better than that.”

Jessie Stone, a sponsored kayaker, who found soft power Education in Jinja, has completed almost every year since the festival begun said: “considering all the fear mongering about Ebola in Africa and how tourism in general has been down, it is really nice to see that so many people have showed up to support the festival and come out and watch it,”

DAY 1 – BIG AIR RAMP

The competition kicked off on January 22, with the Big Air Ramp. Competitors slit down the 14-metre ramp, completing tricks both in and out of kayaks to impress the crowd. Yusuf Basalirwa came in first, followed by the youngest competitor at the festival, 11-years old Craig Dahl who came second. Jackson Two, a river Guide for Nile River Explorers came in third out of the 17 participants.

DAY 2 – EXTREAM ENDURANCE RACE

The second day of the festival was the Extreme Endurance Race in which the 30 competitors raced the length of a marathon from the Bujagali Dam the Nile Special Rapid. For safety purposes, racers competed in pairs and were required to arrive at the finish line together.

Musa Mutamba and Jackson Two came in first, kayaking the marathon in an impressive two hour and 32 minutes. The two begun training together three months before the festival in order to win the race for the third year in a row. David Luhiho and Nasser Nasser Balimugulira placed second and Sam Ward and Shaggy Setkate were third.

DAY 3 – BIG AIR COMPETITION

The most exciting and challenging events were scheduled over the weekend. On Saturday, the Big Air Competition took place at Nile Special wave. River waves are similar to those found in the ocean, but do not move, making it possible for kayaker to surf these features and throw a variety of spins, flips and twists in the air and they surf. The competitors’ best three moves were counted and judged based on the difficulty of the move and how well it was executed, with extra points for combinations and flair. Sam and Emily Ward placed first in the men and women’s freestyle competition. Bren Orton placed second followed by Stephen Wright in third.

DAY 4: HENDRI COETEZEE MEMORIAL, ITANDA FALLS EXTREME RACE

This was the final day of the competition. Itanda falls is a class V rapid and one of the most difficult. Ward described the extreme race as “one of the hairiest and scariest races in the world.” It is named in memory of Hendri Coetzee, a legendary exploratory kayaker in Africa who lived in Jinja and led the first full descent of the Nile.

Paddlers raced each other in pairs; with the fastest five competitors moving onto the final round was purely judged by style, where paddlers were fee to do whenever they felt was most impressive, including surfs of huge hydraulics with remarkable tricks. Sadat Kawawa placed first and was followed by David Luhiho and Musa Mutamba.

Sadat Kawawa, who is also a member of the the Uganda Freestyle Team who has run the difficult Itanda rapid nearly every week for the past 3 years. “Every single time am on top of that rapid, my heart always shakes, but you have to do it. Once you do it, it is big fun,” Kawawa said.

Thomas white, a photographer living in Kampala, has attended the Nile River Festival for the past three years and learned to Kayak on the Nile. “I have really enjoyed watching all the amazing kayakers with their impressive skills and I am working up to may be entering next year.”