The raft flipped. One, two, three, four, five… six…seven, eight. Everyone quickly popped out of the water and were hanging onto the sides. This part of the river wasn’t so hard. I wasn’t sure how it had flipped. I wasn’t sure how much attention KB, the guide, had been paying to the river. I floated behind the raft in my kayak keeping a constant eye out for anyone losing contact with it. Up ahead the river was getting faster. KB got on top of the raft, counted everyone and then clipped on a sling ready to flip the raft. He then looked downstream. “Oh Sh*t!” he shouted as the raft drifted into a group of boulders that then blocked the rafts route downstream.
The raft vanished underwater as KB jumped ship and landed on one of the boulders. Everyone who had been hanging onto the raft vanished. The force of the Himalayan water had just forced a large 8-man inflatable white water raft underwater and held it there. What the hell was it doing with the people? How could this happen here? We had negotiated some of the hardest commercially run white water in the world. Yet here, where it had eased, we were in serious trouble. I drifted past the boulders where the raft was pinned underwater and I broke out quickly below in a pool. I felt ill. I was trying to work out what to do next. Everyone had gone, vanished from sight. Then, a head, coughing, spluttering and confused, right near me, then another and another. Instinct kicked in. I paddled over and helped the confused swimmer to the side. Then another and another. KB was frantically running up and down the shore gathering the stragglers and counting.
The porters, our vehicles and supplies were further downstream at the pre-arranged campsite. This meant there was only one way forward. Extract the raft and carry on. Extracting the raft was no simple task. The monsoon rain a month earlier had swelled the river and the force from it was huge. It is a rare sight for a raft of this size to be forced underwater and pinned. Finally, with a pulley and rope tied at just the right angle, the raft was freed.
The raft took the safest lines. KB was constantly alert. The rafters paddled determinedly when asked. There were no cheers as they hit the waves this afternoon. No high fives as a rapid was completed. But completed it was, and completed well. It was a relieved and exhausted group of rafters who stepped out onto the beach an hour later.
And the next day… Only one person dropped out of the rafting, and they weren’t the one with the repaired shoulder. Everyone else carried on. Determined to see the expedition to the end. Having come so far, how could they finish then? I was amazed at their determination and resilience. I thought we would have an empty raft. I slipped into my kayak and carefully stretched the neoprene of my deck over the cockpit, sealing the water out, and me in. Ready, for another day on the water.