Bodies Swimming Everywhere

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  Pembroke, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, August 21, 2008

Yeterday I went rafting, which means yet another early morning (I think this is it for the next 3 months) at 7am. WILD starts today and there are many more early starts to come! It seems like I'm still working except that my job isn't half as much fun. For some reason I can't seem to lie in here even if I wanted to. Maybe it's the sun or something.

We started off in the morning and I was assigned to Brooke's raft with a group a bit younger than me and a kid. Much to his annoyance he was made to get out and walk Elevator Shaft and wasn't allowed to do the Main Channel in the afternoon. We checked the gauge at the beginning of the day and it was 9.5 - not bad but definitely on it's way down from the high water last week. By the afternoon they had shut another gate on the dam and it was down to 8.25 (too low for Buseater).

So, the morning was great and it was good to be back on the river. This time, though, I was looking at it with fresh eyes - seeing the stoppers and waves, looking for the eddies and wondering what line I would take. The water is huge though, much bigger than I remember.

After lunch it was the Main Channel. No Buseater at this level, but Coliseum was at a runnable level. We had four rafts in the river and the coliseum flip rate was 50%. Only one actually made it down completely intact. There are three main waves in Coliseum after a diagonal at the beginning. The first two boats made it over the diagonal and went straight into the foam pile of the diagonal. They are small rafts and the result was that they just went up and over, spilling people everywhere. Some swam for it, some were picked up by the kayakers and rafts at the bottom, some (I presume) were picked up by the motorboat before going over The Ledge (with it's retentive hole at the bottom...). The next rafters got in and paddled out into the river with a wave goodbye. They crossed the diagonal, reached the first wave and continued. Phew. That made me feel better as we were next. At the next two waves they somehow managed to spill a few people who had to swim for it, but mostly they made it across. We were next. We passed the diagonal and piled into the first wave. The boat was pushed up on the left and I was thrown clear across to the other side along with my fellow left side paddlers. I thought we were going, but somehow we kept on and I was able to struggle up to the other side and keep paddling. The raft righted and we carried on into the eddy. Hurrah!

In the evening someone suggested finding the beer store so off we went in someone's car. After we came back we built a huge fire and sat around it drinking and talking. Other WILD students have turned up now so I was able to chat to Kelly, Eric, Lauren, Karine and Karine. Right now I'm sitting having breakfast and wondering what to do today. I think the raft trip is full but I have an offer to join the others kayaking on the Ottawa. Not sure about that - it sounds a little scary to me!

*Still no Davidson on the map despite e-mailing the tech support people.

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