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A Guarantee No Flip or Swim River Trip? |
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Cindy after a flip & swim at First Threat, South Fork American River |
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Yeah right! Only a snot nosed rookie would possibly demand such a thing. |
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Okay, so Cindy was in her first season of boating and was really enjoying the fun of riding catarafts. Though not ready to row a boat on her own yet, she began making some pretty tough demands. On the Chili Bar run of the South Fork American River, Cindy experienced her first taste of a River God lesson (now to be referred to as 'humor'). If she had only gone a little lighter on this demand they probably would have been a little more forgiving. |
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What Cindy did know was these catarafts are pretty amazing boats. Add some skill set to a catboat and you have a very stable boat that can maneuver easily. Since she was about to be a passenger on my cataraft, she placed a heavy demand of wanting a guaranteed no-flip and no-swim day on the river. 'Course my only response was "can't guarantee that" Only to be received by a "Well why the hell not?!" It was under my breath I muttered "Because the River Gods wouldn't allow it." Certain she didn't hear me, I spoke up with "Because I just can't! You never know what may happen on a river trip." I guess it was a lot easier to say than trying to explain River God philosophy to some one who probably wouldn't understand until experiencing a few more river trips. |
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Boy was she miffed. We pushed off from shore and all went well through the first few sets of rapids. We had a good 2,800 cfs flow and I was in tune with the boat and the river, each move felt smooth as we finessed our way down river. Until . . . just before 'First Threat' rapid. I told Cindy at this flow, 'First Threat' may be a pretty big wave. I know it was her response that doomed us. "As long as we don't flip" was all I could hear as we approached the drop. The wave was huge with a reversing curl at the top. I forced as many good strong forward rows as I could before plowing into the wave. The next thing I know. . . we were surfing my '13 cataraft on the biggest damn wave ever. I really didn''t want to be there, in a moments time, my desires were fulfilled. Just then I felt the back end of the boat (where Cindy was sitting) begin to sag and suddenly the front of the boat flipped up and backwards over the top so fast I felt like I was being launched by a catapult. The scenery changed immediately, bubbles, lots and lots of teeny little bubbles, very pretty and very wet. When I came to the surface I was next to our inverted boat. I heard a pathetic call of "Chuck, Chuck, Chuck!" from the other side of the boat When I climbed onto the boat, there she was, floundering and scared as a drenched kitten. I pulled her onto the inverted boat just as Greg was rowing up on his cat and took Cindy on his boat to allow me to try and flip the boat rightside up. With Greg's help the boat was ready to go. It's funny that at times like this, ideas come to mind. I began to ponder the idea of stenciling "This Side Up" on my cataraft tubes. |
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Once situated and warmed up after our chilly swim, I turned to Cindy and said "like I said, can't guarantee that, 'cause ya never know what the River Gods will do." She was still pretty miffed. |
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Cindy's facial expression was of pure disgust (see photo) and in addition, she also lost a contact lense, which made it look like she had eyes of two different colors. She never said a word . . . . or maybe she just didn't want to talk about it. |
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