Whitewater Rafting Adventures
Salmon River, Oregon - October 1997
This is my introduction to the very exciting sport of whitewater rafting. Well, it's probably everyone else's, too, since we do not know of anything like it back in Singapore (by the way, there are quite a number of us engineers in a business trip to our R&D center in the USA). So one day, as we were going through the brochures in the hotel, we just made a decision to go rafting and so we went, about 12 of us.
The journey
It took us a couple of hours to drive to the Salmon river bank from Vancouver, Washington (our HP site). We had to first register, and sign some form to indicate that the company is not responsible should anything bad were to happen (pretty standard stuff for most adventure sports). Then we had to get into this wetsuit, and boy, do we need it...the water is freezing!
When we get on into the rafts, the guide then proceed to tell the various commands that he uses to tell us what to do. Standard ones are "forward", "backward", "strong forward", "strong backward", "left", "right"...and we had a period of smooth water to test it out first before going ahead. Then we hit our first whitewater, we found out how important it is to follow commands. The next few rough patches are really great, too.
The jump
One interesting spot, we had to walk because the waterfall is graded 5, i.e. might cause death. The rafts were then towed by rope over the waterfall. Now the fun part is this, we had to get down to where the raft is from the rocky cliffs (it's after all a waterfall, and they don't grade it a 5 for nothing). 2 options: walk down or jump down. Guess what? I was the first to jump the 30-foot cliff, and the water temperature was bad. I thought I was a pretty good swimmer, but the cold just hit me and I couldn't think straight for a moment. Luckily, the guide just shouted and I finally came to my senses and swam to the raft. It was exciting!
The great fall
The new few patches were pretty tame...hey, we're getting good at this, until the last fall, rated a 4. Well, this one has a walking bridge on top of it, and so, the guide gave us an option of whether to go, or not to go, i.e. after inspecting the fall from the bridge. It's a waterfall of about 15 feet, but no rocks, so it's pretty safe from harm's way. The only danger is that we'll be thrown off the raft and be swept downstream. Okay, our group of rafters decided to go for it and as we went over, I can still remember that I was lying flat on the raft as it went down, pinning the legs of one of the ladies. The impact was tremendous and the entire raft went underwater for 1 second, and we came up, the guide, plus Kian Soon (our senior engineer) was gone...swept downstream. We just allowed the raft to float and when it reached a calm patch, they just climbed on board. Phew!
Let's do it again!
Yep, whitewater rafting is fun, and this will not be my last time doing it.
More adventures to come later :-)
Selangor River, Malaysia - June 1998
The place that we'll be rafting is about 2 hours away from central Kuala Lumpur. The arrangements are made entirely through e-mail of which I thought Rubin from Tracks Outdoors did an excellent job in maintaining the communication lines. The trip cost about RM150/person for the run and with the van to accommodate all 10 of us, the final trip price is around RM180. Not too bad for a whitewater rafting experience, the first for some in the group.
The arrival is pretty much the same routine in most rafting places. We get to the place, then get into our respective lifejackets and helmets. Then we choose the paddle.
Yes, the experience of Malaysian whitewater rafting. Initially, everyone was really excited, making tons of noise at every little rapid we encounter. Wasn't until the 1st big rapid that we realize the strength of the rapids that made everyone quiet. A "small" waterfall of about 5 ft is able to throw a full-grown man off the raft, especially if you're not attentive to the rapids. Audrey actually got stuck in a whirlpool for close to 20 seconds before the guide plunge in to pull her out. Patrick was at his "crucified stance" while Susan and Lula (from another group) clung to the upright (yes, it is vertical!) raft. I was flung to one of the rocks, and got hold of Lula when she could not hold on any longer. Nigel was already swept downstream about 30ft away. And this is just one "small" waterfall.
At the Grade 5 fall, Patrick was thrown off the raft and if not for his helmet, would have had over 20 stitches on his head when he hit one of the huge rocks beside the fall. Needless to say, all of us were completely awed by the raging river rapids...one thing's for sure. The experience has taught us to never underestimate the power of nature.
Same place, next year?
I must say, to God be the glory for the safety of everyone in the trip. Some of us got sunburnt, some rashes, some bruises and cuts. Overall, this will probably remain as one of the highlights of 1998 of all of us.
Can we do it again? The last I heard, the Malaysian government is planning to build a dam in Sungai Selangor to cater for the water and power needs of Kuala Lumpur. All in the name of development. Nevertheless, I thought it's great that we have at least tackled the Selangor river.
Tully River, Australia - Sept 1999
This trip was done in the Tully River situated about 2 hours drive away from Cairns near the town of, what else, Tully. We had signed up with R n' R which stands for Raft and Rainforest and our pick-up place was about 2 minutes walk from Caravella - they share the same office as the Pro-Dive diveshop - pretty convenient for us, I thought. 7:00am was our time to be picked up by their dark green double-decker bus, which means that we have to wake up earlier for breakfast...otherwise no energy at all. Upon reaching their office at the Tully Country Club we were provided with morning tea/coffee with biscuits. Some were renting sandals and spray jackets. Then off we went to the river.
After organizing ourselves into groups of 7 (one raft sits 8, including the guide), Kelvin just came to us and had us organized. Shuhui sat beside me, and there's a brother sister group, and also a honeymoon couple with us (from London). Similar to other rafting trips I have gone to, the instructions were "Forward paddle", "Back paddle", "Over left", "Over right", and "On the job"...the last 3 to shift positions on the raft to either side. There's also a command "Great sex" meaning to jump up and down. Then we went through a small rapid to test the obedience of the team before going on the Theatre, our 1st big one. Not bad, and so we continued with the other ones with names like Corkscrew, Zigzag, Wet n' Moisty. etc.
One cool feature of this company is that they provided photographers at a few of the major falls, which we bought later. Also, the first 2 rafts to go over the rapids will have to wait by the side to do "safety", meaning the guide has to stand by the rapid to throw a rope in case someone went overboard. This happened a few times, one raft even capsized and threw everyone down!
There's also once Kelvin had everyone sit at the edge of the raft, and when we went over this waterfall, everbody just went overboard except for a few who refused to budge (like me). We also went thorugh under a waterfall, which the water is simply freezing. Lunch was at 12:30pm, and the another 2.5 hours after that before we change and left fro Cairns.
As always, a great day to raft. Excellent and very good guides...highly recommended.
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most recent update: June 16, 1999
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