Now You See Me, Now You Don't (A Whitewater Rafting Adventure Story)

I would tell you the whole story of our whitewater rafting adventure on the Chattooga River ...

how once we arrived we were given equipment--helmet, paddle, and PFD (personal flotation device) and a detailed safety talk about what to do IF ... you know, IF you fall out of the raft or IF your raft flips over ...

how we enjoyed rafting Section III of the river which contains Class I, II and III rapids, as well as one Class IV rapid named Bull Sluice which drops 14 feet over a series of two drops ...

how we stopped before Bull Sluice and were given another pep talk, especially on how not to panic if you are thrown from the raft.

I would tell you all these things ... but ... well ... I'll let photos tell the story. Pictured in the raft  (bottom to top): father & son (strangers); Jonathan & Timothy, Joe & Maria, our guide.

Starting our descent down Bull Sluice

THEN ...

Where am I? 

And where's the guide?!?!

Scariest couple minutes of my life. And we're still not sure exactly how it happened. We approached the rapid and sat down on the bottom of the raft when told to do so. Two seconds later I was CATAPULTED from the raft. 

And so was our guide.

And so was Timothy, but Joe scooted over and managed to grab him.

The guide grabbed the back of the raft and was able to climb back in.

I tumbled and whirled under water (and, I think, under the raft) all the way down the rapid. I felt like I was in a washing machine. FOREVER. 

But I remembered our safety talk about not panicking and allowing our PFD (personal flotation device) to pop us back up to the surface. And that's exactly what happened. 

Then they threw me a rope and pulled me to shore.

Other than inhaling half the Chattooga River up my nose, I was okay. Shaken, but okay.

A few minutes later we stopped at a point in the river, left our rafts on shore, and climbed to a small outcrop where we were given the opportunity to jump into the rapids and allow it to carry us downstream. And because I wasn't going to let one scary episode ruin it for me ...

I jumped.

postscript: This was the third time we've booked a rafting trip with Wildwater, and even though this was the first time I was thrown from the raft while rafting Bull Sluice, everything was still amazing. The guides were knowledgeable, fun, and really went out of their way to ensure that we were not only safe, but that we had a good time.