50 boating days before the end of June is a new record! Before I moved to Washington, 50 days in a year was that best I had ever done.
The campers from the day before got up and met up with the other folks running the river. We had a mid-sized group - 4 catarafts, 5 inflatable kayaks, and a hardshell kayak. The flow had dropped a little from the day before, but was still a fun flow. The first few rapids were a good warmup, and there was plenty of space in Alligator to miss the big hole at the bottom. I was the only one to run right at Six of One, but I didn't really understand why the others went left - oh well, six of one... One of the IKers swam, and decided to trade with a rafter through Jaws and Graveyard.
The IKers mostly ran left at Jaws. I bombed down the center, which I find is the easiest line even though it doesn't look like it. We had one swimmer at Graveyard, but once everyone was gathered up, we were ready for Whirlpool. This is my favorite rapid on the run. We run the right channel, which starts with a couple of big holes, followed by a fast wavetrain, and ending in the end of the whirlpool. We stopped here for lunch.
After lunch, we continued down through the easier rapids. We had a few more minor IK swims, but things went fine otherwise. At the takeout, we were met with an odd situation. Three young guys had swum to the island next to the bridge earlier in the day, but had gotten stuck. They planned to swim back to shore, which should have been easy, but the strong current had swept one of them downstream to an island. We helped get the other two to shore at the takeout, but they had to call for help to get their friend off the island.
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