Kozel - Three men in a raft : an improbable journey down the Amazon

24 August 1999: Kicking Horse
River, British Columbia, Canada

The world turned black, deafeningly loud and ice-cold. In the space of a few seconds, my chest constricted and relaxed a dozen times. I wanted air, lots of it, but those first few gasps brought in nothing but liquid.

More than air, I craved light. For in that frozen moment, when the inflatable raft had propped on its edge before finally tipping over, I was certain Id looked down into oblivion.

My helmet butted up against taut rubber. Neck ligaments crunched. I was still beneath the boat, running out of oxygen, and yet, strangely, I felt sure the thick, wet darkness would squeeze the life out of me before I drowned. Into my ears, the thunderous roar of the river pounded. It was as though Id been thrown into a stampede of terrified animals. Kicking Horse had seemed an odd name for a river, up to now.

I made another grab for light and air. This time my head punched through the surface but even then, it was by no means a permanent arrangement. My eyes felt numbed, vision blurred by the cold water splashed across my corneas.

I watched my friend (and only companion that afternoon), Colin Angus, haul himself onto the upturned boat. Quickly, he unravelled a length of strapping from his waist and hooked one end onto the rafts perimeter rope. Then, holding the other end of the strapping to his stomach, he leant back and over the edge, using his weight to make the boats edge a pivot point. As Colin deliberately toppled backwards into the river, the four-metre inflatable flipped upright. Hed worked the summer as a commercial raft guide, and his experience showed.

The boat looked healthier, but my own situation was now worse. While Id been marvelling at the Canadians smoothly executed response, diverging currents had pulled us well away from each other. Getting back to the raft wouldnt be a quick exercise, and it wouldnt be easy.

I suddenly remembered something Colin had mentioned earlier that day, when Id picked his brains on the topic of flipping: Keep your legs up. Dont try standing. People had been known to get their feet caught in a gap between the riverbed rocks. The force of the current had then pushed them over and theyd drowned. As easy as that. I made sure I flapped about as close to the surface as I could.

To my own great shame, Id never been at home in the water. Perhaps it was genetics. No one in my family could play a musical instrument, and similarly, none of us rated ourselves as much of a swimmer. In truth, though, keeping your head above water is a big ask for anyone in rapids. Sloppy waves came from all directions, bobbing me up and down like the float on a fishing line a fair analogy, except that I wasnt floating too well in the first place. The water in my belly had taken on the role of a lead weight, and I felt the walls of my stomach stretching as more of the silty brown stuff cascaded down my throat.

This wasnt my first time shooting rapids it was my second. The first had been three years before, a tourist rafting trip on the Tully River in far north Queensland. I could hardly label it a whitewater experience, however. Someone had forgotten to open the dam that morning, meaning the volume of flow below it was much less than usual. The resultant sleepy rapids had managed to coax little more than a few subdued yee-has from the punters on board.

There was no such dud performance from the Kicking Horse today. Her rapids were in full bloom. Late August heat was biting hard into the Rocky Mountains reserves of snow and ice, which, mixed with the chalky soil gathered up by the countless glacial trickles, had made rivers of iced coffee (in temperature as well as colour). Water levels were high. It was a good time of year to be on the hunt for big whitewater.

This time, I wasnt the tourist punter looking for a rush of blood to spice up his weekend; today was the beginning of active training. In two weeks I would be in South America, one of three men with their sights set on travelling the Amazon River from source to sea. Among many other things, it meant getting familiar with the idea of being tossed around for a month on one of the rivers longest and most tormented tributaries the Apurimac.

In effect, todays practice run was no different from the hepatitis, tetanus and yellow fever vaccinations that had already been pumped into my veins: an inoculative dose of adrenalin, a shot in the arm against the mighty Amazon itself. Yet as I struggled to reach the relative safety of the raft, the term practice run seemed woefully inadequate. Baptism of fire or prelude to disaster sounded more appropriate.

The feeling was going from my hands and feet, and my confidence was fast dissolving. I was stunned by the waters power, shocked by how defenceless I was in it. Compared with what was promised to us in the Apurimac, running this section of the Horse was meant to be a lazy cruise, a gentle breaking-in. Half choking on another involuntary mouthful, I began to rethink just how much Id chosen to bite off more to the point, what exactly I was about to start chewing on.

Colins proposition had arrived by post four months earlier, on 17 April, at the end of a particularly rotten day at work. I was supervisor of a rainforest planting project near Mackay, a sugar-cane town on Queenslands central coast. Not a bad job, except for the unruly antics of my team of teenage trainees, and the apathetic local council whod commissioned the project in the first place. On the day that letter arrived, both parties had driven me to the point of breakdown. In that sort of mood, I was liable to make a split-second decision, and agreeing to a six-month paddling trip down the worlds second-longest river brought instant relief.