Thursday, October 21, 2004

Trip Journal -- Day Six

14 Oct. 2004

OK.  I love rafting.  Love it, love it, love it.

That's me on the left, in the sun.

Today, rafting the White Salmon river in Washington.  A class 3-4 with one (count it, one) class 5 rapid.  Perfect for me, really, as I was just about ready to try out the class 5 experience but didn't want to jump into a big old "expert" river.

This was great.  Before we went over the 12-foot waterfall, our guide (a grandmother of 2) pulled us over, re-inflated the raft, and made surea ll our ducks were in a row (in this case, the photographer and the rescue team).  Better safe than swimming and all that.

I was quite proud of myself -- I may be one of the weaker kayakers on the ship, but I'm a good strong paddler when it comes to rafting.  And I'm also pleased to report I was the first one back in position ready to paddle when the guide yelled for us to get back up (from our official positions of cowering in the raft for going over the waterfall).  I'm guessing that if everyone had gotten up and was ready to paddle, we wouldn't have run on that rock.  Ah well -- minor setback.  Nobody got thrown from the boat (and no injuries of any kind) which makes it a good trip by my reckoning. 

Well, that and the "I rafted over a 12-foot waterfall!  Woo-hoo!" thing.

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