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| Rafting trip - 1 |
| Thursday, August 31, 2006 |
Last Sunday was the most exciting day I had in a long time. We went white water rafting in the American River. It was my first time ever, and I was not as scared as I thought I would be. We woke up pretty early for a Sunday, by 7:00AM and after the usual reading news, slashdot, gmail check and tiny debate on who would hit the shower first, we were all set to leave by 8:30AM. Our friends called us up and confirmed the departure. DH had a brilliant idea to buy those one-time-use cameras for the trip as our digi cams would not survive the rafting trip. So we told our friends that we would meet them in a few minutes at a designated location and set off to WalMart. I was amazed to find a Water-proof one-time-use camera on display, just right to use for our trip. We got that and drove to our meeting place, while I was trying to figure out how to actually click the camera. The water-proof camera was actually sealed from all sides to make it water proof, so it took awhile to figure out what to press to take the picture. Me and DH were in our car while three of our friends were in the other car. We got onto the highway shortly after 9:00AM. After 10 miles we took an exit and entered country side-road and drove on for another 10 miles down a winding road before reaching the destination. We were advised to be dressed in non-cotton clothes and leave all valuables including wallets in the car. We had our caps and shades and water bottles with us. We spent some time doting ourselves with the sun screen. Like it would help. I somehow dont believe in those. We grew up in India playing under the scotching sun days after days during summer. So what if we became a little dark, or rather tanned in their words. Apparently it was not good for the skin. So I put them on anyways. Friends of the River are a non-profit group of people and hence we got cheap tickets and also the guides were very friendly and moved with the group very well.
The rafts were taken out and air was pumped in, one of our friends helped in this, holding the tube to the raft while one of the FOR members pumped the air. Soon, rafts and guides were assigned to people in groups of 4 and 5. Luckily we were 5 of us and we all took to one raft. Our guide seemed to be pretty quiet and isolated from the others. We learnt later that he was not a regular with the group and that he was just helping FOR for sometime. We were given several instructions on what to do when we fell off the raft. When one falls off the raft, the first thing one needs to do is to lift the whole torso, and legs and float flat on the water. I was to know later why they adviced on that. We were not supposed to try walking in the river even if the water was shallow. All these instructions just made me more nervous and scared. It was almost 11:00AM by the time we carried out our rafts onto the water and sat in it.
The water was so cold! It was blazing 90+ F outside but the water was freezing cold. Everyone said we would get used to it pretty soon. To the benefit of those who have never been rafting, let me explain how the raft looks. The raft is basically an oval shaped flat container, with three horizontal bars in the middle. We were actually not supposed to sit on the floor of the raft like I hoped, but on the intersection on the raft's perimeter and the horizontal line across the raft. So basically one is less than a foot above the water in the river. And we were told to wedge our feet between the floor of the raft and the horizontal bar, that was supposed to prevent us from falling off the raft. We already had on our life jackets and our paddles. Our life jackets were secured pretty tight, it almost made me breathless. The reason they gave was they did not want the life jacket to come off as they try to rescue you out of the water in case you fall off. Once we were on the raft, our guide taught us some quick lessons on paddling. Forward paddle, badkward paddle, left turn, right turn, highside right, highside left, and of course the most important was Stop, which we were to hear a lot. We practiced all our moves for sometime, joking and laughing and a little impatient to just get going and get on those rapids.
Initally it was all small rapids, probably Class 1's. It was really cool. To have the water so close by, sometimes touch them, observe the rocks underneath, jutting out, pebbles, soft rocks, shaped by the flowing river over years. Sometimes it was very shallow one can see the surface while sometimes it was soo deep, it almost looked sinister. After we rafted over a few Class 1 and Class 2 rapids, we came to a flattened portion of the river, were it was pretty deep with no rocks, called the 'Swimmer's point' or something like that. They had named each significant part of the River with some name, I dont remember all of them. The guide said anyone who wanted to take a dip in the cold water was free to do so. Two of my friends said they would do it. Of this one guy had already been on the same trip a year ago, and had fallen into the water at a particular Class 3 rapid, he didnt remember which one it was. He and another friend said they would jump to take a swim. But when the guide gave the green signal to jump one friend got too scared and didnt jump. This other friend was sitting behind me, and I knew he dint know swimming. I heard a loud thud and splash as he threw himself into the water. The guide asked him to slowly swim to the raft, and he just kept smiling, and stayed afloat. We picked him up in sometime all wet and dripping with a huge grin on his face. The guide asked him why he didnt swim. It was then he decided to tell that he dint know swimming. I think it takes a great deal of courage to jump into wild waters without knowing swimming. But this one feat of his, took away my fear of falling off the raft. So what if I fell of the raft, I would not drown as I had my life jacket, and I knew swimming, though I had only swum in swimming pools, something told me I would be able to swim faster in rough waters if my life was at stake.
As we rafted along, right in the middle of the river with green mountains on both sides, we were going deeper right into mother nature's womb. Or that how I felt. Our stomachs started grumbling. We were keeping a close watch on the raft with only one woman and all the food containers slowly ambling by. We were totally divided into five rafts about 25 people. Some had brought their water pistols with them and playing by dowsing each other with water. Whenever there was any of our rafts closer to us, we took full advantage of the situation and used our paddles to spray the other raft with water. This was our way of getting off the heat of the day from our system. Within minutes we would be drenched in cold water, feeling refreshed. We also managed to take some pictures along the way.
We had initially thought that the trip was only going to be for two three hours and that we would be back home by 3 or 4PM. But we were informed that we would be picked up by the bus at 5:30PM from our destination. Wow, that was a lot of rafting.
It was 30 mins past 12 when we stopped over by the river for lunch. All the guides got together to make some lunch for us. It was sandwiches. We had some Pringles and Lemonade while tomatoes, onion, bread tofu, was being cut and the table set up for all to serve themselves. They asked the vegetarians to raid first, and we did. It was a filling lunch to top it off with biscuits for dessert. We were briefed about the work Friends of the River do. After that the five of us grouped near the river and these guys started playing by throwing stones in the water. The game where you try to throw the stone in an almost horizontal position such that the stone bounces on the surface of the water. One guy was picking up pebbles from the shore for his collection.
We set off afterward having a hard time putting our life jackets on, now we had had our lunch and hence become bigger than before. We were to raft on many Type 3 rapids after lunch, and many adventures, and we were all looking forward to it.
I dont have pictures as I am yet to develop the roll in the camera.
(to be continued) |
posted by SK @ 9:10 PM  |
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| 3 Comments: |
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Hey, I think I went rafting in this exact same river 3 years back! Did you have rapids like Hospital Bar and Satan's cesspool (not sure) on it?
I love white-water rafting - awesome experience :-)! I jumped into the water at the swim point, but held onto the boat :-)) (my swimming skills rate only slightly higher than pathetic)!
Waiting fo the next part :-)!
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Nice writeup...
rafting for 6 hours?? but atleast they made you lunch...
my only exp in the water was canoeing, and me and my partner were walking for the first half a mile, because the canoe was so filled with water... but anyways we ended up first :))
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Mr, Thanks will certainly write more soon. :--)
Arch,
Yes it had HB and Satan Cess pool and all. Next part. :--))
Prabhu, unmaiya sollunga, ethana per competitionla participate pannanga? ;-)
Sparkie,
How is NZ? Have fun!
Black water rafting is rafting in waters underland, in caves. NZ is pretty famous of those. You should do that some time, its awesome excitement.
White water is just the white surf on the gushing open rivers.
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Hey, I think I went rafting in this exact same river 3 years back! Did you have rapids like Hospital Bar and Satan's cesspool (not sure) on it?
I love white-water rafting - awesome experience :-)! I jumped into the water at the swim point, but held onto the boat :-)) (my swimming skills rate only slightly higher than pathetic)!
Waiting fo the next part :-)!