It depends on who you are, whether you'd call what we did today white water rafting or white water swimming. If you are Jayme or Jen - it was more swimming.
We thought we were going kayaking, and when we got to the river our inflatable rafts looked a little more like canoes. But we had gone "white water tubing" the day before and the water was a little less than crazy. So we didn't have the foresight to be concerned, when our guide put Jen and I in our little canoe alone and gave us two paddles and said, "here we go!"
The first section was great fun, good scenery, good jokes, fun paddling and then we hear what has got to be rapids up ahead. Without too much warning we see some good sized waves, nothing like American rafting, but my brother's a guide, so its got to be in my genes right!
We dip down into the first rapid, sideways, which was a bad start and the boat tips one way and Jen dives overboard, rocking the boat enough to flip me out the other way. So our white water swimming begins!
After some good fighting about the proper way to steer a boat, and some silence because of course both of us are right, we make it through the next couple rapids intact. This only means we are coming up on the biggest section with a lot of false bravado! We see the rapid ahead and take some time to eddy out and get a good position before falling into the first wave. After the first bob, the back of the boat gets sucked into a sinkhole, and we are both in the water being pulled to the bottom! Some good swimming and a lot of humility later we floated out to calmer water and hauled ourselves back into our boat.
No serious damage. Jen banged me on the elbow with her paddle, because God forbid we let go of that while we drown, but except for our egos, everything else is fine!
So, lesson learned is, your brother being a rafting guide does not make you one. And if there are three people, and one of you gets to ride with the guide - be the one to go with the guide!
1 comment:
Those are going to be some fun pictures!
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