We started the rafting trip with a 5 hour drive up to the Adventure Bound facility at Caratunk Maine, punctuated with a stop in the middle where people got dinner. We arrived at 9:30 PM, and everyone set up their tents and went to sleep. People woke up in the morning, had a yummy breakfast, then we went over the safety rules and put on the wetsuits, helmets, and lifejackets. We all got on a bus and took a 45 minute drive.
We then walked down to where the boats were, and moved them into the river. The rafts started moving, and as we went through a calm patch and some light rapids, we learned about river-rapid features, such as eddies and hydraulics. We had another calm patch and some heavier rapids, and we learned a few more terms. We then went into the strongest rapids, and one Scout actually fell out of the boat at Hayden’s Hole. The Scout was safely retrieved in a few seconds.
Three times the boat hit huge large waves. Finally, the rapids were over, and we paddled to the drop off point, where we had a much shorter bus ride, and then changed out of our wet suits. We then had lunch, and afterwards the scouts did various activities, games and a climbing wall. Later we had dinner, and afterwards watched a movie, then we went to bed in our tents.
We woke up early on Sunday morning, and everyone packed up their stuff remarkably quickly. We then had breakfast and drove to a beach, from which we paddled across to the other side of a lake, where there was a particularly high rocky cliff. Then the scouts climbed and belayed up the rock cliff, and most even rappelled down the cliff. One kid ended up upside-down halfway down the cliff, but he made it down safely too, good thing for the safety line! We then boated back to the bus, and had lunch on the drive back to the facility. When we got there everyone got in the cars and had a long drive home.
I really liked this trip, especially the rafting, because it was so exciting.