As many of you know, especially those that read yesterday's post, I went rafting this last week and 3 of my fellow rafters fell out. Well, I am of an unwavering belief that this "accident" should not have happened. I want to discuss this with anyone that may be reading now.
OK, here we go. Less than a mile into the trip down the river we hit a rock and got stuck on it for a short period of time. This should have been our first indicator. There were 8 of us on the raft, including the guide. On one side we had two strong paddlers, a foreigner, and a little kid. On the right side was myself, a 15 year old girl, a disabled guy, and the guide. Now, I mean no disrespect toward anyone in anything I may say because I love everyone. Anyway, we hit a rock - first indicator.
A little ways further we hit a second rock and got stuck on it. Our second indicator. Now my 15 year old cousin Rachel was in front of me. Anyone that has been rafting knows that the two in front are kinda the leaders in when we all paddle. Jered was on the left side in the front and he's strong. Then Rachel was in the front on the right. She just couldn't match his strength. I'm not even saying she wasn't strong or that she was incapable. I'm only saying she couldn't match his strength. We just got stuck on a second rock. HELLO!!!!
Well, our guide remained silent on the subject. I screamed out that we sucked. My cousin Mandy, whom I love, said we were the raft of misfits. I think she was right. I did talk a lot. I was in a way the entertainment of the raft (if you can possibly imagine that.) Our guide couldn't speak over me. He didn't even try. (In my defense I hadn't seen Mandy at least 9 years and I haven't seen Rachel since she was like 5. I wanted to talk.)
Later on, we were going through one of the most technical rapids and we hit a rock which sucked in our left side of the raft and we lost 3 of the 4 on that side of the raft. Mandy and Nadia made it back to the shore where we left our raft fairly quickly while Rowe was too pathetic to swim to the shore and was picked up by our second raft of Carlsons.
Now for the observations. Mr. Guide (Lloyd), what were you thinking? You are the guide and you need to get things under control. I have been rafting 4 times now in my life. Never have we had a single problem at all, let alone have people fall out. After getting stuck on that second raft our guide needed to address our problem and fix it.
At least two or three times I asked Lloyd what we were doing wrong. All he said is we weren't paddling well enough. Really? Thanks for the observation. He needed to point out where the breakdown was. I'm sorry, but Rachel cannot keep up with Jered in paddling. Lloyd should have switched Rachel and I. We should have worked on our paddling more. We should have shifted around some more.
After the "incident" I switched with Rachel and took the lead. It's amazing that we never even hit a rock after that point. Hmmm.
Leadership 101 says find the problem and fix it!
What are your thoughts?
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