That was the answer our raft leader Jim gave to the rafter who asked, "What if we have to go pee?"
We had just squeezed ourselves into our wetsuits and were getting into our inflatable river rafts as Jim spent a few minutes giving us our final instructions: "If I say GET DOWN then get as low in the boat as possible; If I say HOLD ON then grab the rope and hold on; If I say Splash the people in that boat then DO IT. Everyone understand? OH, and one final thing, If I say everyone to the right or to the left, then it means that the raft is about to tip over- I've never had to use that command. Does everyone understand?"
"Yes, yes!" we replied.
Minutes later, after a few practice maneuvres, we were into it. To make things more exciting we were taking the waves sideways. On the second wave, we dove in and then instead of coming out the other side, we slid back down into the trough, and before we knew what was going on, we were hearing Jim shout, "Everyone to the right!"
We spent the next minute getting thoroughly doused and discovering the wonder of "self-baling" boats, and the excellent insulative qualities of our wetsuits. We were completely swamped.
We swirled in that trough like a toilet that just wouldn't quite flush. The seconds stretched into more than a minute. Finally, a kayaker who was watching from the side threw us a rope and pulled our boat (and us) out of the wave. Yes! What elation to emerge from that whole thing and no one fell out, just one paddle was lost which we later recovered.
Jim said later that he was leaning as far over to the side to keep our raft from flipping.
The rest of the trip was great. We went through the Kayak training runs at Canoe Meadows and caught some nice waves, then spent lots of time just having fun soaking other rafts in our eight boat expedition. Before the end, we went under a low hanging train bridge and I. and I grabbed on and swung from the bottom of the bridge and jumped into the water. Before that, O. and E. took a swim in the nice deep water area.
Highly recommended! 10 out of 10 for family fun.
We had just squeezed ourselves into our wetsuits and were getting into our inflatable river rafts as Jim spent a few minutes giving us our final instructions: "If I say GET DOWN then get as low in the boat as possible; If I say HOLD ON then grab the rope and hold on; If I say Splash the people in that boat then DO IT. Everyone understand? OH, and one final thing, If I say everyone to the right or to the left, then it means that the raft is about to tip over- I've never had to use that command. Does everyone understand?"
"Yes, yes!" we replied.
Minutes later, after a few practice maneuvres, we were into it. To make things more exciting we were taking the waves sideways. On the second wave, we dove in and then instead of coming out the other side, we slid back down into the trough, and before we knew what was going on, we were hearing Jim shout, "Everyone to the right!"
We spent the next minute getting thoroughly doused and discovering the wonder of "self-baling" boats, and the excellent insulative qualities of our wetsuits. We were completely swamped.
We swirled in that trough like a toilet that just wouldn't quite flush. The seconds stretched into more than a minute. Finally, a kayaker who was watching from the side threw us a rope and pulled our boat (and us) out of the wave. Yes! What elation to emerge from that whole thing and no one fell out, just one paddle was lost which we later recovered.
Jim said later that he was leaning as far over to the side to keep our raft from flipping.
The rest of the trip was great. We went through the Kayak training runs at Canoe Meadows and caught some nice waves, then spent lots of time just having fun soaking other rafts in our eight boat expedition. Before the end, we went under a low hanging train bridge and I. and I grabbed on and swung from the bottom of the bridge and jumped into the water. Before that, O. and E. took a swim in the nice deep water area.
Highly recommended! 10 out of 10 for family fun.
