white water rafting

Last weekend was the Chemistry Department's rafting trip. A bunch of us loaded up the cars to make the 6 hour trek to Millenoket, ME. That's right, we decided to go rafting in Maine...that's pretty far north, and I don't want to exaggerate or anything, but it was effin FREEZING on the river.

I think it would have been ok if we had nice weather, but when we left the base camp to go to the river (the Penobscot River) it was about 60 degrees and cloudy. By the time we broke for lunch it was ~55 degrees and rainy. That means the weather was crappier, folks; it also means that my hands were frozen while I was trying to eat lunch. Everyone was shivering.

In their infinite wisdom, the rafting company we used decided that within 5 minutes of getting back in the river after lunch we would go over a class 5 rapid (read: a 10 foot water fall cleverly nicknamed "lose your lunch falls"). I managed to keep my lunch, but then we did this thing called "surfing" in which we paddle the boat into a "hole" at the bottom of the falls and basically get stuck there trying not to fall in until the river decides to give us a break or our guide can steer us out of it. In our case we had to get another boat to bump us out of the hole. It was fun, but exhausting. Then the guide asked "who wants to go over the falls again?" and everyone in my boat is like "hell yeah!" Going over the falls again entailed paddling over to an outcrop of rocks, getting out and lifting the boat back up the falls (10 feet!) and then paddling down the falls again.

Let me paint several pictures in your minds' eye (I am aided in this endeavor because I have seen the pictures the rafting company too k for us from shore).

Picture 1 - April's boat is half way down the falls, all seven crew members are holding on for dear life. Looks fun, right? It was tons of fun!

Picture 2 - April's boat is in roughly the same place, but now it's making a 45 degree angle with the water's surface. Everyone's mouth is open as we're yelling in our surprise/excitement. Still a lot of fun.

Picture 3 - what is no longer April's boat is perpendicular to the river, none of the crew is in site (we're under water)

Picture 4 - The ill-fated boat is once again flat against the water's surface, but now we can see the bottom. You still can't see people (please imagine us under the boat desperately trying to find a way out from underneath it...we're looking for air dear reader).

I had to use the aid of pictures because the sequence of events took place so quickly that none of us in the boat had time to figure out what the hell was going on until we were already drowning. In the pictures, the boat barely changes it's location in relation to the river (only the angle)...they must have a pretty awesome camera to get so many shots so quickly.

Luckily we all made it back to the surface without incident. One nice thing about being dumped was that the water was actually warmer than the air, so we were a little more comfortable in that respect.

Talk about treading water!

The next hour was pretty calm, so we "dried" in the freezing, wet air. We were actually paddling to try to stay warm.

That's it for now folks!

----------------
Now playing: Sergio Mendes - E Menina (Hey Girl)
via FoxyTunes