Monday, July 18, 2005

Team Toga; WWR

Is whitewater all one word? White water. Whitewater. White-water.
It's two words. . .

I went WWR eight days ago.

For Real.
True Story.
No kidding what so ever.
. . .
For those of you who don't know what WWR stands for, its White Water Rafting. This is not to be confused with WWF which stands for World Wrestling Federation or World Wildlife Fund.

I didn't go alone of course. That would be dangerous. We traveled as a group of twelve in a giant rubber raft seven kilometers down the screaming out-of-control Ottawa River. If it wern't for our lady rafting guide on the rudder we would be rock slime for sure(graphic I know), or maybe just lost. So the lesson to be learned here is that your guide is important. Do not abandon your guide but instead listen and obey. It works a lot better that way.
At one point the river split, one side Quebec and the other Ontario. Just an interesting fact.
Oh and after we ate as many hamburgers and hotdogs as we could we sailed through a couple more rapids and went cliff jumping! yah!
It went something like this. . .

First off, there were 10 other big blue bubble boats besides us, each carrying it's own team of 13 life-jacket/helmet wearing oar whealding thrill seakers. A sight to behold for sure. Like a floating army of brighly coloured inexperienced soldiers we toar through the still standing water with unnessary force in antisipation for the next set of rapids. Our crew of 12 of course chanting "Toga! toga! toga!". As we were the high energy, entuesastic, roudy team.

With the cliff now in sight five rafts searged ahead of the others to an 'eddie' (thats rafting lingo for ya') by the rocky shore where 65 eager first-time cliff jumpers climbed from their rafts with great clumsiness and crawled up to the point of no return.
The first young man, a fellow rafter, good guy, without hesitation leaped off over the edge becoming nothing but a fading woop of exclamatory remarks and a distant splash.
"Who's next?" the guide ordered.
I was right there, clearly the next in line, nothing but a few small steps between me and a whole lot of falling. As not to look like a wimp I quickly mustard up all my marbles, took one last look at the cliffs edge and boldly stated for all to hear. . . "Not me".
I did eventualy jump. Quite thrilling actually and dispite seeing two people with bloody noses I jumped a second time too.

It was a nice, cool, neat-o weekend.

Also, if ever you decide to go WWR on a blazing hot sunny afternoon be sure to put sunscreen on your knees, too. Burnt beat-red knees are a real pain to bend.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That sounds like some sweet swashbuckling fun for sure. I want to do it. Why were you chanting TOGA! TOGA!....?

Anonymous said...

We chanted "toga" because our leader did. He says (to him anyway) it means "Once your in, your in all the way." Something like that.

My knees were that bad and yes she should.

Anonymous said...

To me "toga" is something you wear, when in Rome.
You made the WWR experience sound just as exhilarating as it probably was! Thanks.

YM