paddle forward!

Yesterday I went white water rafting for the very first time on the South Fork of the American River with the Outdoor Adventures club! It was super awesome, to say the least. I was pretty scared at first, having never done this before, and having seen pictures/videos of people white water rafting. this trip involved class 2 and 3 rapids (they go up to class 5) so it was mild at first but got really exciting when we got to the class 3 rapids. we once collided into a huge rock because we couldnt paddle hard enough and the rapids were, well, too rapid, so we crashed into it head first… the raft nearly flipped! 2 people fell out of the boat into the rocky water (which was really dangerous considering we weren’t wearing helmets, the guides were though, for some strange reason). when they surfaced i finally recognised who they were (everything happened so quickly i was trying my hardest to stay on the raft! it was pretty terrifying watching nareen and shubho being swept away by the rapids so quickly! jackson was shouting PADDLE FORWARD PADDLE FORWARD! the whole time but we only managed to rescue shubho (even then, in the process we almost ran him over with the raft because the rapids swept us too quickly towards him). good thing the other raft was ahead of us then and picked nareen up. she was trying furiously to swim against the rapids but to no avail. her camera had fallen in and dale somehow managed to pick it up as they paddled past it. PHEW!

and so, here are those nearly-lost photos. some were taken by nareen’s disposable underwater camera and others were taken by shubho during lunchtime. (i didn’t bring my camera because it is..not waterproof.) we didn’t manage to take any photos of the rapids or of us when we were in the rapids because we were too busy paddling like mad and falling into the water, or trying not to fall into the water.

GO WHITE WATER RAFTING!!!! it’s crazy (:

during the briefing before getting onto our raft. i look like i wasn't paying attention to jackson, but i was!

the beautiful views from our raft (:

we all had to huddle in one corner of the raft as jackson pried us off the rock that we were stuck on..HAHA!

the other raft on the trip!

carrying the ULTRA heavy raft from the water up the slope.

nareen, shubho and i outside the OA van as they were packing up the equipment.

us stopping for lunch by the river..

the other people on the trip...they were all room mates!

2 of the guides... dale and ricardo (:

nareen and i (: