Memoire of my "Near Death Experience" (Or Shd I say Near Life Experience.)

(After the loads of hotlinks I have pestered u with, finally I have decided to write another one of my boring posts.)

Making a small bit of event setup before we go ahead.

Event-- White water rafting at Cheat River, Class 4-5
People -- Freaks.
Date -- Sunday, May 30, 2004.
Time -- To be leaving Baltimore 630 am Indian Standard Time :-)


Indian Standard Time denotes something and we did not let down its repute one bit. Wanting to leave at 630 , ended up leaving arnd 730. The journey was supposed to be a three hr drive without getting lost (Well, which by Murphy's law is an inevitability for us).
But we did make it arnd 1030 to Cheat river, now starts the real fun. We did not exactly know the name of the tour operator we were going with. Also with none of the cell phones catching any sort of ntwk, communicating with the other grp was impossible.

So started our fight to find the right place and I may say, that as usual I screwed up again. We saw a party getting ready to board and I boarded down to make sure if it was the ones we were supposed to go with.Not finding any of our frnds waiting for us outside, We decided that this wasn't the one and we moved ahead.After abt 45min of searching arnd the place, we finally came to know that the aforementioned place was infact the one and we had missed our frnds who were already on the trip.(Hugely disappointed were a couple of ppl, Anadi -- Cursing himself for the screwup where I shd be taking more of the blame for the same, Aarti -- Guess was bored with our jokes :-)) No more trips were scheduled for that afternoon. But the operator trasnferred us to another place in Ohiopyle..(Class 3-4).

Think that turned a blessing in disguise for us. With the two girls alongwith us already prety damn scared of rafting(especially at Class 4-5), I think Class 3-4 was just perfect.

So it starts off -- Usual routine of introductions, safety equipment, instructions ....

Myself made the captain of the team (Many wouldn't contest that this was the worst decision made collectively).

My Team --
Vishal -- First timer scared of water.
Anadi -- Buckles under pressure ;-) (and plainly keeps shouting Check,Check !!!)
Aarti -- Only one with certified rowing experience :-)
Nicolle -- Doesnt wanna get wet while white water rafting. Finally came out to be the remote control captain(Sonia ishtyle ;-), with me in Doc's seat) for the raft.

A Bad Start:- With a captain like me and the crew absolutely confused abt what to do, we werent expecting a great start but it was worse than we cud have imagined. Through the first set of rapids , our raft almost overturned with three of us including myself finding oursleves swimming in the cold rapids. Though the boat flung me out into the water, I somehow managed to hold on to the raft, and goli doing a great job pulling me inside. The two others left out were Vishal and Aarti. With Aarti getting a hold of an instructors Kayak, she was safe. But Vishal was still reeling arnd in the water with no support and his lack of knowledge of swimming (like mine) making it tougher for him to stay afloat(even with our lifejackets on). But eventually Anadi did mange to pull him inside with me pulling Aarti inside(that was a tougher job than it sounds). So everybody safe and sound (well, not exactly sound with Vishal reeling with bruises and both of em psychologically scarred ;-))

Couple of Rapids Ahead , I came to encounter my Near Life Experience. Somehow I managed to fall out of the raft in a pretty fast rapid. Could not hold on to myself and was reeling in the water with my specs falling over and the helmet falling over my head. Unable to see, water going into my lungs, absolutely out of breath.(Thats how u feel when u r drowning ;-)Went that way for a more than a couple of dips and the rapid was really quick. A good Samaritan (a desi coincidentally) somehow managed to come near to me in his raft and tried to pull me in , but while doing so we went trhough another rapid and this time his raft and my back completely banged into a rock. But he held onto me. Then another raft came closeby and pulled me inside their raft. At one point of time I was holding onto both the rafts an heading straight into a rock , but i guess commonsense prevailed inside me :-)

What did I experience -- Fear (Oh yea, was scared to hell for a moment). Not exactly sure if it was death that I was scared of. But then it was only abt survival. And I also have to say I somehow enjoyed that fight for survival.Trying to keep myself above the water was the toughest part :-)

Rest of the ride was relatively uneventful with us completing other rapids relatively successfully. I think the event instilled in us a sense of urgency which led to our success and better coordination in latter stages.

This probably was as close as I would get to a Near-Life Experience as Tyler wud call it.

I am sure other ppl will have a lot to say bt the day. Keep the posts and comments flowing.