An extract from a white water adventure featured in Global magazine
In search of adrenaline by the bucket load Steve Thomas lost his rafting virginity to white waters of North Wales;
" Down, down, pull right, right ... " The
instructor screamed in increasingly higher decibels of borderline panic. Three
of our four man crew were down and pulling hard right, desperately trying
to pull free from beneath a rapid which was about to fill and possibly sink
our raft. Meanwhile leaning right out of the raft and paddling as hard as
he could in the opposite direction was my Mexican buddy, Hirlam. The higher
the shouts right, the harder he went left, which had me in raptures of laughter.
One swift yank of his buoyancy aid and he came flying in to the raft and we
were free, much to everyone's relief, and a few stern looks from our instructor.
" Sorry bowt that mate ... " followed his bemused response, with
a distinct Mexican Cockney accent .
This was a characteristic wet Welsh weekend, so we figured that we may as
well get seriously wet and make the most of things by rafting out the rapids
at the National Whitewater Center, near to Bala in North Wales. Our entire
crew were rafting virgins, which was kinda comforting, and maybe a tad daunting
at the same time too. We’d booked for a late afternoon 2 hour session,
which gave us time for 4 good grintastic runs down the river, good value adrenaline
exchange rates by anyones standards.
Of course we’d all seen rafting pictures and snatches of stuff on TV,
but it really doesn’t prepare you for the delights of the real thing.
The center it’s self is poised right besides the biggest rapids on the
river, which means that you can sit in the calm dryness of the cafe watching
as raft after raft splashes it’s way through the frothing white waters.
This in it’s self is quite amazing, as each raft evokes a whole different
mixture of facial reactions from it’s occupants; face splitting grins
and hysterical eyeballs out screaming
dominate from beneath the red plastic helmets, followed closely by the terrified
side clinging looks of concentration. Either way by this point we were gagging
for our turn, and were not quite sure of which kind of faces we’d be
pulling through the rapids.
In to action
In steps Jim, our raft captain and instructor for the
afternoon, with the good news that we too were about to dress like Ninja Turtles.
Sure enough, in true Mr. Ben style, we emerged a few minutes later dressed
in plastic topped rubber all ready for our big adventure. But, thankfully,
before we were to be tossed to the cruel rapids a session of dry land instruction
was laid on. I say dry land, I mean outside in the rain ! We all hung on to
Jims every word, even if it was all just about to be forgotten when we hit
the water. Much of this instruction concerned rescue and survival. I looked
around to asses which one of us was going to be the man overboard, and crossed
my fingers that it wouldn’t be me.
Let the games commence ! The raft hit the water with a thud as it plunged
down from the launch ramp. First run, myself and the Mexican had been granted
the privilege of the soft seats in the middle of the raft. A gentle paddle
and rehearsal of everything Jim had tried in vein to teach us kicked things
off. When you concentrate so hard left and right can easily get confused,
as we were finding out. The effects of a forward left instead of a forward
right and a backwards left can mean the difference between a fast forward
and an auto flip and reverse, either way as we headed towards the first white
water things were slowly beginning to gell, and all was almost well.
The cry we were all waiting for wasn’t far away, that of course was "
down, " the war cry used on the approach to the more serious rapids.
Miss this one and you’re surfing the rapids from the wrong side of the
boat. Caution and testing was the order of our first run, and there were plenty
of downs being hurled at us. " They call this next one the grave yard
.. " Grinned Jim sadistically. This was where the facial expressions
started to change, and by the time I’d translated it in to Spanish we
were already diving down to the raft floor, and about to get wet for the first
time. The raft seemingly bananad it’s self
as we dropped in to a huge and freezing white rush of water. Before we’d
even had chance to recover we were back up and paddling like crazy again,
only this time Jim had us in reverse, so that we could take on the "
ski slope " ( The next section of rapids. ) backwards, which was pretty
bizarre, but double the fun.
You’d be forgiven, as a novice, for assuming that each run would have
to be pretty much the same, after all water is water and a raft is a raft.
But as we were about to find out these things can be extremely versatile in
the right hands, and even novices can soon learn enough to pull a few fun
tricks on the water. This time round myself and the grinning Mexican were
at the helm, which is most definitely the most exciting place to ride. Captain
Jim had us all over the river, standing up, spinning round, even leaning backwards
in to the water, which was all great fun. The master plan was to ride sideways
in to the ski run, then to pull on to one huge rapid and to surf on top of
it. We’d seen this done by kayaks, but not by anything as big as a raft.
Pulling in beneath
it came the near sinking moment with the confused Hirlam, which was swiftly
followed by a session of frantic hard paddling to get us up and on to the
rapid. It was really amazing, but somehow we pulled right on to it and managed
to surf it for a while, literally just hovering on the crest of this huge
white beauty.
Our session was nearly over, but as a grand finale Jim had decided that we
may as well go for it. No messing around, now downs, just flat out high speed
fun. Grinning like mad we paddled flat out and head on for the rapids, paddling
right through and in to them, even forgetting the only down command on the
whole run. This last run was full on white water, and white knuckle, rafting,
and a fine way to leave us jittering and dripping for the rest of the day.
