As the others have decided, this section isn't really about the whole trip but what has been dubbed "the incident". I personally would favor a more fitting name like "Holy fucking shit, there's and elephant sized clump of mangled root and branches in our way and we may die". But as the others have stated the trip started out fine, with the usual lack sleep before a life threatening event and more planning going into the types of bulk candy we wanted then the route we should take down the river. It wasn't until afterward I discovered that specific members of the group thought this would be a nice floaty sunny paradise down the sheep. Much to those members of the groups surprise this was going to be an action packed RAFTING, not floating experience.
 
             Now one thing I feel has to be made specifically clear is that while 3 members of the rafting party are looking FORWARD they don't seem to realize that the person at the back can and did steer, no not steer, steering would imply that the raft went where the person steering intended, so lets say the person at the back can and did POINT the floating gong show in whatever direction was necessary.  And while I don't claim in any means to be the fittest or even the strongest of the group. I know that I can paddle well worth my share and also with a longer arm-span than at least 2 of the group, can do so in a slightly "reclined" position. That being said I feel that both Amit's and Sean's description of how we came to be plastered against an ungodly creation of evil mud and wood that had no business being in the middle of a river, at least 30 feet away from its origin on dry land, are accurate. From this point on I will now refer to the huge fucking crime of nature sitting in the middle of the river simply as "bitch".

             I too recall the fateful words of "we're swamping" and also recall Amit being swept away like a rag doll.  One of the things I remember the most accurately is seeing Sean trying to claw his way onto the top of bitch like a zebra on the banks of the Nile while a crocodile is trying to have it for a snack. I really can't recall another time that I have seen this usually docile individual flail at least 3 limbs at once for a secure hold. I don't really recall Amit being swept away, and I have absolutely no idea where Steve went. I calmly and collectedly weighed the possibilities of an 8 foot raft full of buoyant air going under water and concluded that the chances were pretty slim that all 4 separate chambers of this buoyant air were punctured. So not being an individual to just bail out of a tricky situation. I assed the situation and came to some conclusions A)My life was not in that much danger because I did in fact have a life jacket on, B)I can swim, C)That I was the only one with enough foresight to tie my personal belongings into the raft, D)I did not want to separate from said personal belongings including my keys and my cell phone, and finally E)I looked around and saw that all other members of the rafting team were either swept away or trying to get off the raft like it was the Titanic and they were dressed like little school girls to get a spot on the life boats. My decision was made; I was on the raft and was going to ride this baby out like a rollercoaster.

             Well Some don't seem to realize that if Kadler (Me) didn't "sit on my ass and float away" then this specific trip would have ended in the 4 of us walking back to the car and trying to decide how to split the cost of 2 oars, a 6 person raft, and all the personal belongings that didn't happen to be in Steve's backpack.  And I am quite confident that if we went back to the OPC without a raft (of surprisingly high quality anti sharp rock and branch material) we wouldn't just loose our rental fee, but instead be held accountable for a raft I'm sure was worth well over 3 or 4 hundred dollars.

             So I did stay in the raft, and I'm pretty sure that if specific others didn't get there massive twig like bodies swept away by the current, a certain brownish individual would have stayed in the raft as well.

             To contradict the panicking ideas of others, the raft didn't go under.  The raft didn't tear apart, the raft didn't explode killing everyone on board, and the raft didn't even get sent to an alternate dimension by the massive force of the sheep river. You know the kind of alternate dimension where up is down, black is white, and Sean isn't that fond of Ketchup. The raft didn't do any of these things, it simply returned to its normal state without the weight of Steve and Amit pushing the edge down, and simply bounced off of the bitch and continued down the river.

             Amit did manage to get his head out of the way of a collision with the water filled raft I was riding by mere inches, and thankfully due to the combination of his weight and the added buoyancy of the life jacket, it was pretty easy to yank him out of the water into the boat.  With no paddles, anchor, or outboard engine to rely on Amit and I had to jump out at the shallowest part we could find and hold the raft in place while we tried to utilize the cheap plastic whistles hanging off our PFD's to contact a possibly very dead Sean and Steve. After a fiasco of emptying the raft while it still sat in water, and an admittedly horrible 3 tier attempt to pass Steve my almost new Olympus camera.  We were back on track and on our way. All that stood between us and home was more river, and a 5 foot water fall we didn't see until we were about 10 feet away, but that's not that great of a story anyway.

             All said and done, I am quite impressed that we did in fact manage to recover all but one of our belongings.  I think the only reason we didn't find Amit's hat is due to the fact that he did not realize he lost it until the end of the trip.

-Kadler