That horrible brief moment, when you're trying your darnedest, but you know it's not working, and that unforgiving water is going to be so, so cold.

Whitewater kayaking on the River Findhorn, at the end of the middle section - a bend in the river, and the very last rapid before a large pool. The rapid catches a lot of people out, and is appropriately nicknamed, Carnage Corner.

Full credit to this quiet lass. With no prompting, out she gets, and carries her boat up the stoney bank to above the rapid; back into the boat; and has another go.

Everyone's watching, and quietly keeping fingers crossed. First few bits are no bother, but just above the first bigger drop she misjudges it, and is pushed up against a big rock. Pinned there she leans way to the side and struggles not to fall in to the flow that's holding the boat there, whilst also trying to get off the rock. Lots of lips are being bit by the audience. She's freed herself, but lost her paddle after hitting the blade against a hidden rock, jarring it out of her hands. Deeper lip biting. Down that step and spun around into a short pool, still upright, she now drifts rapidly towards that last nasty one again... backwards. Audience are now automatically going into rescue mode, reaching for throwlines, and moving into positions. Down that last wee drop with its very fast flow, she's facing upstream and leaning back. The water piles up on the front of the boat, pushing it down, and near instantly the back of the boat comes up, so the boat's vertical, standing on end. Everyone holds their breath, as she manages to keep the boat in that position for what seems an age, before it eventually comes down. Disbelief all around. She did it. She's the right way up. Big cheers, followed by a relief pause, and breathe normally. Neil looks my way, and shouts, "Did you get that?"

I failed. No credit to me. Like the others, I'd automatically gone into rescue mode, when there was next to nothing I could do from my rock on the other side of the river, with no kayaking gear or throwline. Lesson learned: stay cool; try and keep focused on what's going; and keep shooting to record the outcome.

Today was an experiment with the cameras tracking autofocus. It didn't do that well. Light in a gorge type river with woodland on both sides, did make it challenging. Couldn't get fast enough shutter speeds either, for most shots. I suspect that this may have been around the time that DSLR's became of interest (this is a way-back-Blip). Hadn't really been aware of such cameras until seeing the one that one of the group in Turkey, Ross, had with him. After the holiday, we'd all posted our photos to a shared internet album, and his were the best by far, when he dared to use his camera (i.e. off the water).