Tidal Bore Rafting

  It had been a couple of weeks since I did any writing on the blog. for part of the time we were away enjoying the festivities of the Maritime Mega 4 geocaching event in Truro, NS. It was an awesome time to meet geocachers from around the world and to experience our own province like a tourist. The MM4 committee organized many satellite events around the province and one of the ones that we most looked forward to was Tidal Bore Rafting. I have a confession to make, I am from Nova Scotia and have never experienced the tidal bore. Not once in over a half century of conscious memory. Whew, that is behind me. We thought that there could be no better way to experience it than to take a full immersion experience, and that truly describes what happens when you hit the river and meet the bore.

 We started the day by meeting with the organizers of this event. We seemed to have to sign an awful lot of waivers before we were allowed to go to the next step.
  You only live once right. Now, everyone is given a coloured rubber bracelet, this tells you which boat you are in, each boat holds 8 people. We looked around to find the souls with similar coloured bracelets and we had ourselves a crew.

  Next stop on the journey was the donated show pile, where shoes that were deemed too dirty to make the return trip home ended up. If you are worried about your shoes, it you wonder if the mud will come out, visit the show pile. The mud won't come out.   Next is the PFD Pile. We head there to get a flotation device that fits and get yourself strapped in.  Now properly shod and buoyant it is time to start the parade to the river bank to start the most exciting part of the day.

The donated shoes.

Getting bouyant

The start of the parade to the water

As we hike from the lodge we get our first sight of the river and our conveyance for the day, and the mud. Lots of mud. Red mud, slippery mud, did I mention lots of mud.  There is no use being dainty and trying to get to the boat without getting any on you, it won't work and you will be coated soon anyway. Best to just just grab hold of your inner child and slip, slide and roll your way to your boat.

 

The look of things to come

After a brief mutiny when the captain was put over the side, a new caption was at the helm.

  Now we embark on our boats and push off from shore. We head down the river for our meeting with the bore. It is amazing how shallow the river is at low tide and at several points people had to pile out to drag the boat over the bars to get to deeper water, the river changes day by day so there is no map for the bars. 

 Back in the boats once more we are motoring along watching the eagles perched in trees waiting for the inrushing tide to deliver supper, I think we are too big to tackle so are safe for the time being.  The driver takes us to a sand bar in the middle of the river where we can debark for a little while and stretch our legs as we wait for the bore to arrive.

On the bar, in a few minutes this was the rapids

  Some people use the time to get up to some mischief.  Our guide is heard to mutter that it is never the children who end up throwing mud.

Incoming!

  As we look down the river we see a faint line of light coloured foam on a chocolate milk coloured river. The bore is coming. No need to panic but it is time to get back in the boats for the highlight of the day. We move a bit further down the river and meet the bore head on. If that sounds dramatic, it is.

   It is up and over the face of the bore with the full force of the motors behind us and then into the calmer water behind it. An amazing ride, but it is not over yet. The boat disappears under the waves and fills with water. The driver gooses the throttle and pushes us into the next wave, now the water is up to your neck and another wave is looming. The water crashes over your head and the boat is nowhere to be seen, you can feel it under you, but you can't see it.

   The boat is now into the calm water and runs out the holes in the transom  and you are once again in a boat and not riding atop a submarine. You look around and see 7 more smiles that look like the one you feel on your own face. You then look around to see what the spectacle looks like from the outside as others plow through the waves.

 You think to yourself you are so glad that you did this and it was an amazing experience. But it is not over. You are in a brief reprieve as the boat is navigated around to plow through the waves once more. This time you know what is coming. The anticipation is a bit more acute. You grip the rope a bit tighter. As the waves this time seem a bit bigger and the boat plows into them a bit harder, you are sure you are going to leave the boat, not by choice, but by force. Just as you are sure that you are going overboard, another huge wave slams into you pushing you into the center of the boat. A huge grin spreads across you  face and the next wave enters your mouth, you then realize that the chocolate milk river is quite salty.

After a couple of passes through the waves it is time to head upriver to the mud banks for the final experience of the day. We exit the boat near the riverbank, removing our shoes we make out way to the top of the bank, by digging our fingers and toes into the slippery mud. We get to the top and trying to remain upright we survey the slope, then you sit/slip/fall onto the bank and shoot down the side like an otter in a wildlife show. Then it is the precarious scramble to get to the top for another slide.

 

Then we get the signal from our guide that it is time to head back to the lodge. We are a bit disappointed to be leaving so soon, but we are advised on the way back that the showers are communal and the first ones back get to see less of their fellow rafters. We are sold on the idea and head for the lodge. There is only one last muddy climb up the bank to shore and  a chance to hit the showers and get mud out of every nook and cranny.

After the showers are done and the muddy gear is stowed, or tossed, it is time to do a final meet up with the organizers to say thanks and to draw names for door prizes. It is a geocaching event as well.  After all is said and done we line up for a group photos to remember the fun with and it is off to the next event in our weekend.