I tried one of my sisters "boats" in a perfectly smooth small pond.
Scared me some. Gimme a helicopter any day.
My brother is a whitewater enthusiast. Been down the Grand Canyon
three times, Alaskan rivers at least twice, all the big northwestern
rivers, the wilder the better. He uses both raft and kayak. He took me
on a raft trip once, a nice, easy trip, right? Imagine the front of a
raft almost straight down, then almost straight up. There is a now
infamous movie short often shown at rafting club parties of this guy
in the front of the raft giving the folks on the bank high fives after
just getting through some wicked rock drops making the raft go crazy.
Trouble is, while I was elated that we got through, my brother,
clearly shown in the movies, is swimming like crazy to get back to the
raft after being thrown out. It's easier staying in if you can hold
onto the ropes rather than the oars.