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An early start today, as being picked up at 7.15 am, with very sore heads. Not a good idea to drink so much beer and wine before a full day of white water rafting up the Colorado River! We were taken into Moab town centre to kit out for life jackets, and for the long drive to Westwater Canyon, and we all purchased refillable water bottles for the trip. First of all we had a soft cruise along the river, there were abut 30 of us. A group of scouts, a couple of families, and our 4 x guides, 3 x rafting boats, and a larger raft for carrying supplies. For the cruise down, all the boats are roped together and we got to see some of the sites that cannot be seen by car or foot. It was amazing. Then there was a soft white water ride that could be done out of the boat, which some of us jumped in to do. We then had the safety talk, split up the boats, and did a trial run on a category 3 rapid before stopping for lunch. After lunch we were heading for another 10 rapids, all different and with different names. Runs are graded up to level 5, and we were told we would be doing mainly 3s and 4s with one level 5! The first one was called Staircase, and that was fun. Further along we got to a grade 4 one called Surprise 1, we were on the middle boat out of the 3 and as Bradley was the lightest, he sat in the front. It was definitely a surprise, as in the midst of the rapids the boat flipped and we were all thrown in the water. We came to the surface, Jan was near Bradley and grabbed hold of him, and pushed him onto the upside down boat, then Bradley helped pull mum onto the boat, as the guide was shouting hysterically to get on quickly, as we were just about to hit Surprise 2 rapids. We all managed to clamber onto it, but not much to hold onto when it was upside down, as we hit Surprise 2 rapid in an unusual way! Managing to get through this, and all still on the raft, the boat in front had seen what had happened, and waited in an eddy (small pockets of still water in the sides of the canyon) They threw us a rope and our guide was shouting to grab onto the rock and not let go. They pulled us towards them, and then Chris climbed across to the canyon wall and held onto a paddle at one end and somebody in the boat held onto it at the other to try and keep us in place. We then transferred onto the other boat while the guide flipped ours back over and then we all got back in. Then we realised why our guide was so worried, as just round the corner we were going to head into Skull, the category 5 white water. We then had to work out how many oars were left, and rearrange what we were going to do to get through the rapids, as we had no choice but to go for it. We hit it full on in the middle, and went straight into the bowl. The front of the boat went down about a metre, the guys in front said it looked awesome as we just completely disappeared into the hole and they didn't think we would come out. The guide said he had never seen anybody hit it head on like that. The front of the boat then just went up and we were all convinced we were going back in again, but somehow we managed to keep in and ride over the water with a huge amount of relief. Our water bottles bought from the morning were lost, as was Jan's hat she bought the day before, but we were all in one piece. In the evening we went to a local restaurant for their award winning meat loaf, and then headed to bed very tired.
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