One of the fun things about packrafting is that almost every flip is a swim. I think Bob always found it amusing to tally up the number of flips at the end of a river trip on his packraft courses. A way of grading rivers, packraft style, and all in good fun. It wasn’t uncommon to see Bob at the bottom of a rapid with a grin, watching a gong show of swimmers and packrafts that had flipped one after the other in the same boat munching hole because we all took the same foolish line that had somehow deviated from Bob’s. The whitewater version of the telephone game, where we’re all following Bob but one after the other got a bit more off line. I learned a lot (and swam a lot) following Bob down new rivers in packrafts. Yet, I can count on one hand (with room to spare) the number of times I’ve seen Bob swim.
And when Bob’s swimming, you know you’re probably going to be swimming behind him.
In 2018, I accompanied Bob and a few others on a packrafting trip in Europe. We paddled 13 rivers in 15 days starting in Greece and paddling our way north to Croatia. One of the rivers in Greece we affectionately nicknamed the ‘Ouch’ after multiple swims and boulder garden bruisings.
I had already flipped twice by the time we pulled into an eddy on the Ouch and were given instructions that the class 5 rapid that we were to portage was approaching. The only parts of the conversation that really stuck with me were: class 5 canyon, undercut walls, portage, and ‘don’t worry there’s a big eddy before the rapid, can’t miss it’. I was paddling behind Bob, spread out somewhere in the middle of the pack when we came to a blind corner with a massive hole that spanned almost the entire river. By the time we’d seen it, there was no time to go around. Any delusion I had of somehow punching through the surprise hole was completely deflated as I watched Bob get munched and then saw his packraft come out the other side upside down. Seeing Bob swimming I thought, ‘well, I’m fucked’, and an instant later the hole had claimed another. The next thing I knew, I was swimming behind Bob and by the time I realized we were both swimming past the ‘can’t miss eddy’ and into the rapid that we were supposed to be portaging. It was too late. I ditched my boat and swam like mad toward shore only to position myself to go right over the first pour-over rock at the entrance to the rapid.
Long story short, I was recirculated in a hole for a very long time, spit out only to be pulled under again, and then again. Each time emerging just when I thought I might actually drown. I finally ended up clinging to a rock by my fingernails, legs still dangling in the current. I was terrified. A combination of having spent my first significant downtime on a river, and fearing the worst of the unknown coming further down the rapid. Having thoroughly unenjoyed the first part, I didn’t intend to swim the rest. I clawed my way out of the water and lay completely exhausted and boatless on the side of the river, shaking with adrenaline and questioning my life choices. After I was reunited with the rest of the group, we set out down the river to look for Bob and found him strolling back up the portage trail with his boat in one arm and paddle in the other. He swam the entire rapid. He said he knew he wasn’t going to make it to shore in time so he just swam it down the middle and tried to stay off the walls. But he said it with calmness as he had just swum a lap at the public pool.
That was one of the only times I saw Bob swim. Like really swim. After finding my boat in an eddy, it took a good long pep talk from Bob to convince me to get back in and paddle the rest of the river.
Later that day when our group was asked about the ‘Ouch’.
“Is it paddlable?”
“It’s swimmable!”
