Title: The Adventures of Basman and His Fellow Kayakers

from: John Park - master of ceremonies at CKL

The day started like any other day with breakfast, though this time we started earlier to get underway sooner. As usual, Erny Klares spread Nutella on his whole grain bread, and then proceeded to dip it into his coffee. How can such a thing be permitted?

Marina arrived at the breakfast table asking Guy for advice on whether she should participate in the day’s activities as the evening before she caught her finger in the door of her car. How did this happen? I thought these things happened to children, not to adults J

At 09h00 we met at the parking lot at Lultzhausen to travel together to Ettelbrück. Peter is a good judge of distance, parking his car within 20 cm of mine. In Ettelbrück, a huge parking lot awaited where there was enough room for Peter and his VW van.

As it would be one and half hours before the cars returned from the arrival point, Roland and Fernand suggested that we should go have a coffee and buy the papers from Tageblatt and La Voix to see what the journalists have written about our adventure on the previous days.

Roland found both papers. We found the article in the “Land a Leit” section of the Tageblatt. On the back page of the “Lëtzebuerg” section of the Tageblatt, we found the perfect outfit for our future female participants for the summer edition of the Traversée: “Charlott Lingerie”.

In La Voix, we had a two page write-up that appeared on page 2. What a fantastic public relations result!

Returning to the parking lot, I realised that I had committed two mistakes: forgot my kayak skirt to prevent water from coming into the kayak and forgot to put my dry clothes in the car that would be at the arrival point. Fortunately, Fred, Pier and Jules showed up to take the Revue photographer to each point where photos could be taken. Pier and Jules took my dry clothes and shoes.

After this experience, I know why they remind Fréd “Don’t forget your paddle!”. Now we will have to add to the list “Don’t forget your paddle, skirt and dry clothes”.

At the dam at Diekirch, Marina went for her daily bath. Can you imagine holding your finger in the air to paddle to prevent it from getting further injured? This must surely be the explanation why she ended up taking a bath.

At a bridge at Ingeldorf, a Luxembourgish couple let down a bag. A bag of what though?

For lunch, we stopped at a dam near ? (Guy) It was cold in the open. Here we were offered to take walnuts from the mystery bag.

At lunchtime, I noted the variety of clothing worn by different people. Hilde wears neoprene, over which she wears waterproof pants. Bruno wears a two-piece dry suit. Marina and Lucien wear stockings, over which they wear stretchy exercise shorts. While this seems acceptable dress for a woman, Lucien’s dress may suggest his other interests, such as ballet and dance? Perhaps he is “Basman” – the man in tights.

At the dam (near the end of the Cékaen arrival point), a few of us went down the opening only to be confronted with 200 metres to walk in the river as it was too shallow to allow one to sit in the kayak and to be able to paddle. We thus started the new sport Nordic Kayak Walking. Nordic as the water and air temperatures were cold.

At the dam, the more intelligent participants walked down the river’s edge to find a deeper place to put the kayak in. The most intelligent person, Gilbert, walked the full length of the dam to avoid all possibility of being stuck on rocks.

After walking these 200 metres, I now realise why people buy the kayak shoes with a firm sole.

The evening’s event was spent at a bar in Larochette. There were three clients in the bar when we arrived with our crew of ten people. We stayed till about 22h when the fatigue took hold, telling us it was time to hit the sack.

The sleeping hours were spent in a bungalow sleeping 5 people: Bruno, Detlev, Charles, Gerd and myself. Between the heavy breathing and some light snoring of my fellow dorm members, and the visits to the bathroom for the beer relief, sleep was intermittent.

My sincere thanks to Guy and Erny for organising this fabulous adventure with our fellow kayakers.