Rafting

Saturday was another very early morning to get on a bus to get to the rafting place. We drove 2 hours to a town that battles with a surrounding town on who gets the most rain. It poured the whole way up the mountains but right when we got to our departure point in the river it cleared which was very nice. My team consisted of Nicole, Jen H., Liz, Katrin, Jen and our guide Rob. We got our equipment on and then headed to our raft to learn the moves and commands. The beginning of the river was to be the grade 4 rapids which were good to wake us up. All of the rapids had weird names like birds nest, the maze, zig zag, birth canal, alarm clock, and dog poo. We got to jump in and float down some portions and then learn how to get back into the raft as well as help others get in. I was pretty good at getting in so I had to help people by grabbing onto their life vests and pulling them up.  Nicole fell in twice, one of which was scary because she got stuck in this area for a while and got pulled underneath the raft where she scraped her stomach on a rock. Evan got hit by JD with a paddle and ended up having a concussion. Luckily I didn’t fall out at all besides jumping in or being push/pulled in by the guides and others in our group. At one point we flipped our boat and then Rob asked me and Jen to climb on top of the bottom of the boat with him. I had to hold onto a rope while laying down the center of the raft while Rob and Jen stood on the other side holding my feet. Then they pulled my feet and flipped the raft over so I got to hang off the side and flip in the air. It was really fun. We stopped along the river to get lunch and take a break after seeing some really amazing waterfalls.

Once we started down the river again we went through some more amazing rapids including one where we got stock sideways then finally fell through, which was really scary. When Nicole fell out she switched positions with me because she was in the front and had less to hold on to. There were a couple rapids that I thought for sure I was going to be thrown out of or hit by the other girls falling into me. It definitely made for an interesting finish to the trip. We finished our journey, carried the raft to the trailer and turned in our equipment. The guides were hilarious the entire time and definitely made the trip so much fun. When we got back to Gilligan’s we were all sore and tired so we hung out for a little and went to bed because we were going to have another fun filled day on the ocean tomorrow.