Advertisement
Published: September 10th 2013
Edit Blog Post
September 10, 2013
Left Prince Edward Island early in the morning to drive into Nova Scotia. Sorry to leave P.E.I. but there is so much more to see.
As I mentioned yesterday, today we were to raft the Bay of Fundy's tidal bore. We went with an outfit called River Runners and our trip was on the Shubenacadie River that flows into the Bay of Fundy. Even though the weather was warmish and sunny they had us wear these Arctic flotation suits. No need for a lifejacket, the suit itself is a flotation device. We were getting pretty warm in the suits on the river until we finally started getting wet from the waves. It was all very interesting and a great deal of fun. Our boatman had a great sense of humor and we were in a raft with two other couples, all fun people. Joe was surprised that we weren't riding a wave up the river but as the tide came up in dramatic fashion it created standing waves over the sand bars that were being quickly covered. Joe was impressed that we were going upstream at what the guide said was a 20 mph velocity which
The Confederation Bridge
Connects Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick and is 8 miles long. I thought that was long until I googled long bridge and found one in China is 102 miles long. The P.E.I. bridge is the longest bridge that covers ice. is equal to almost anything on the Colorado River going downriver. We stopped and got out of the boat on a sandbar that was tens of acres across and within minutes we were jumping into the rafts as the water approached the top of our boots. An interesting phenomenon is as the water covered the sand dune, bubbles came out of the sand. Most of us have seen bubbles come out of the sand at the beach as the tide rises onto dry sand. But in this case, the sand bulged up like a small volcano and let out a great fart.
We made multiple passings on the same standing waves. The ride was more like a motorboat crashing into a large boat wake rather than surfing a wave at a beach. It was fun hitting the waves but felt kind of like riding a washboard. The ride was supposed to be 3 1/2 hours but about two hours into the ride we hit the top of a wave hard and I was hanging on tight but my body flew up in the air about a foot off the boat and I came down HARD. I felt a "crunch"
in my back (not my tailbone) and slid down to the bottom of the raft just knowing I was paralyzed for life. The pain was excruciating. There were two rafts in our group and a support raft. The support guy took Joe and me back and I stretched out on the deck of the company's building for about 30 minutes. We were supposed to have a barbecue dinner at the end of the trip but I just couldn't do it. We called the nurse support number on our Blue Cross card and she was helpful and after answering all her questions she thinks I'm going to be ok but it may take a couple of weeks.
Here we are in a motel Truro, Nova Scotia. I had a good hot bath and feel a lot better, just hope the nurse was wrong about the length of recovery and that I feel good tomorrow.
Some of you know that rafting the bore tide has been something I've wanted to do for a long time. Well, I did it and despite getting injured it was still a remarkable experience. I should have sat in the back of the boat rather
than the front and I need to be more aware of the fact that I'm not 35.
We couldn't take any photos because we don't have a waterproof camera but here's a video someone else took of the same trip, only these people didn't have to wear the Arctic suits.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0535s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Donna
non-member comment
Heal
Best Wishes for rapid healing. Even at 35 I think this would be a rough ride.