After facing another bush tucker challenge in the restaurant of the jungle lodge and a guess the mystery fruit drink for breakfast game, our guide took us for a river trip.
It turned out to be in a dug out canoe which had a hole in the base, but he had mended it with mud! Roland and the girls neither swim or canoe, so you can imagine my surprise when Roland sat in the back with a paddle. Everything was going swimmingly, as far as it can in a small waterlogged dug out on the mighty Amazon when we ran a ground. The river is very low at this time of year and lots of trees are just under the surface of the water. Our guide dived in a freed the boat so we could carry on. I turned to Roland and said how nice that the guide had jumped in to free the boat. Roland reply was a strange when he said that " well he should have steered us away from the bank".
Whilst digesting the above statement for Roger irrelevant himself, there was a loud bang and the canoe almost went over and started to fill up with water. The girls were screaming and Roland was in the drink. As he can´t swim this posed a large problem for the the remainder of our trip! I practises my sad wife's face and wondered how to explain this unfortunate incident to the family and friends etc.............
No I didn´t.
I shouted to the guide and both he and I dived in to save him. The water was not clean. I manged to tow the canoe to the bank and flag down a passing coal boat for a ride back to the lodge. It was now that Roland explained his earlier comment as he had not been paddling and steering the canoe as the man in the back does, but using his paddle like a rudder. The rudder must have got stuck in a sunken tree which almost capsized the boat and plunged Roland in the water. My hair is now like dry sea weed and I smell like a ditch.
It turned out to be in a dug out canoe which had a hole in the base, but he had mended it with mud! Roland and the girls neither swim or canoe, so you can imagine my surprise when Roland sat in the back with a paddle. Everything was going swimmingly, as far as it can in a small waterlogged dug out on the mighty Amazon when we ran a ground. The river is very low at this time of year and lots of trees are just under the surface of the water. Our guide dived in a freed the boat so we could carry on. I turned to Roland and said how nice that the guide had jumped in to free the boat. Roland reply was a strange when he said that " well he should have steered us away from the bank".
Whilst digesting the above statement for Roger irrelevant himself, there was a loud bang and the canoe almost went over and started to fill up with water. The girls were screaming and Roland was in the drink. As he can´t swim this posed a large problem for the the remainder of our trip! I practises my sad wife's face and wondered how to explain this unfortunate incident to the family and friends etc.............
No I didn´t.
I shouted to the guide and both he and I dived in to save him. The water was not clean. I manged to tow the canoe to the bank and flag down a passing coal boat for a ride back to the lodge. It was now that Roland explained his earlier comment as he had not been paddling and steering the canoe as the man in the back does, but using his paddle like a rudder. The rudder must have got stuck in a sunken tree which almost capsized the boat and plunged Roland in the water. My hair is now like dry sea weed and I smell like a ditch.
No comments:
Post a Comment