Hypoxia II by Rob Coffey and Nick Doran follows the adventures of four Irish kayakers: Rob Coffey, Nick Doran, Dave Carroll and Ali Donald as they travel around the globe seeking out big water and adventure. In addition to the four Irish guys the paddling documentary also features Flemming Schmidt, Ed Cornfield, Alex Nicks, Marianne Saether, Simon Westgarth, Becky Bristow, Dale Jardine, the Young Guns, Matt Tidy, Ally Collett, Dave Manby, Quentin Carson, Kala O’Riordain, Deb Cook, Bob Marchant, Diego Valsecchi, Kelley Kalafatich, and Moe Kelleher.

The film kicks off with some steep creeking in Italy, Switzerland, Norway and Corsica. The action is fantastic and shows that kayaking does have its dangers!

The group then join kayak legend Dave Manby for some paddling action on the Baktiari river in Iran. If the huge volume river, sumps, and boulder chokes wasn’t enough to make you think twice about paddling out in Iran the gun touting locals and thieves might!!! This is definitely expedition paddling at its most dangerous.

As well as big water paddling in Italy, Switzerland, Norway, the film also covers playboating in British Columbia, and on the White Nile in Uganda.

The final expedition paddling piece is footage from an Etheopian Blue Nile decent. The volume of the water and difficulty of the rapids is at its extreme. At times the rapids are ran blind! This truely is terrifying stuff.

As I am finding more and more the old home video camera films of the past are gone (thankfully). Hypoxia II shows that along with some excellent boaters that the film makers are also top notch and with the balance between the two Hypoxia is easy to watch and follow. The film is both well edited and careful consideration of the type of music used has also been made. Nice filming touches include action being shot from two different angles. This works really well and gives a great impression of the severity of the rapids/falls being run.

Summary –

A great film, plenty of paddling variety and a non-offensive sound track. Definitely worth buying.