Whatcom white water kayakers tackle slalom course on city creek

Fiona Cohen, The Bellingham Herald (Pete Kendall Herald Photos)

POWER STROKE: Half of the kayak is submerged as Sal Ayob of Bellingham spins his kayak around in the rapids of Whatcom Creek.

Sal Ayob takes refuge in an eddy as he assesses a hump of fast water. Then, with a flurry of paddling, he pulls his kayak up the rushing water, going farther and arther until he turns his boat to plunge back downstream.

Not bad for a city park.

With winter rains swelling Whatcom Creek, Bellingham's whitewater paddlers can surf waves, catch eddies and weave through slalom gates without hauling their boats on the highway.

The creek's credentials as a training area could hardly be better.

A Western Washington University student named Scott Shipley set up the slalom course in 1990. Shipley became a giant in the world of kayaking, winning eight consecutive national championships and three world championships. Kayaking instructor John Janney, 65, has maintained the course, adding some gates.

To those unschooled in competitive paddling, the twenty pairs of four-foot rods hanging on wires over the creek look like an odd public art project or perhaps an bscure fisheries experiment.

To a kayaker, they're targets. In a competitive course, each of the gates would be decorated in green or red stripes. Green stripes means kayakers have to maneuver their boats downstream through the gate. Red stripes mean the kayak has to go upstream. Touch a gate and your race time gains two seconds. Miss a gate and it's 50 seconds.

WET LESSON: John Janney (left) offers kayak maneuvering tips to Bob Love of White Rock, B.C., in Whatcom Creek.

THE STRESS TEST

Ayob threads through the course, sometimes pivoting downward thrust paddle with such force that the pointed back of his slalom kayak became submerged.

"You make it look easy, Sal," Janney says. "If I did that I'd be upside-down."

Ayob, 37, a computer consultant now residing in Bellingham, represented Malaysia in the 1996 Olympics in kayak slalom. Although he protests he's out of shape, his upper body looks taut and solid and he tears deftly through the water.

It definitely isn't easy. To maneuver in strong currents you need to put your entire upper body in each paddle stroke. Janney says that after a hard session in the water, it isn't his arms that hurt, it's the muscles on the side of his belly.

It's tough aerobic work. Ayob isn't the only kayaker out with a heart rate monitor taped onto the deck of his boat, and although the water temperature is a few degrees above freezing, Janney wears shorts under his
spray skirt.

Janney sprints hard to make it through a constriction in the creek, just by the new trail bridge.

"I call it my stress test," he says. "If I do that I know I'm not going to have a heart attack for a while."

PLOWING THROUGH: Joost Zeegers of Bellingham powers his down-river kayak upstream in the rapids of Whatcom Creek. The kayak, which is only 16 inches wide, requires exceptional balance.

"ALL ABOUT REFLEXES"

It takes experience to read the ripples and eddies in the river, and skill to keep the kayak upright. But when the water's rushing, there's no time to think everything through.

"This is all about reflexes," Janney says.

Joost Zeegers barrels down the creek on a lean kayak shaped like the head of a squid. The 37-year-old flat-water racer is a fixture in the top 10 of the kayaking race in Ski to Sea (last year he had the second-fastest time).

He says he can't do what Ayob does in the slalom boats, but what he's doing is far from easy. The boat is only 16 inches wide along most of the length of its hull, and as Zeegers tears up and down the creek he has to keep his balance precisely.

While others hang an eddy for a moment before tackling the fast water under the bridge, Zeegers just surges forward.

The creek has other surprises. There are spots where a kayaker can sit without paddling, held in place by the waves. After a winter downpour, enough water can come through the dam to raise the creek level by more than a foot, and create 2-foot standing waves.

For those getting used to the sport, rippled water is challenge enough.

"Give me that branch again," says Bob Love, heading for the bank. Love, 52, a sea kayaker from White Rock, B.C, is new to whitewater kayaking. He and Howard Zatwarnitski, 39, braved the lineups at the border to spend some time in Whatcom Creek.

"What a spot," Zatwarnitski says.

Janney has gone paddling almost every day this winter, only giving up when snow kept him from getting out his driveway.

"I hope it rains all summer," Janney said.