Safety Kayaking

I watch Paul lying back on the deck of the kayak, eyes closed, and the warm sun penetrating the spray deck and safety helmet he wears.  The tepid waters of the Nile lap gently beneath his boat, and I know that soon he will overheat again, and need to roll beneath the surface just to cool off.
It is very likely that Paul will never go London, never have to wake in the dark, pull on layers of heavily clothing and catch a tube to a suit-filled office.  If you haven’t ever lived in a cold climate, it is very hard to imagine what seems like another world.
At each thundering rapid of the Nile, Paul and his team of safety kayakers dance amongst the huge waves and pull into an eddy on one side of the rapid.  It is here they wait for the rafts to come through and to support the rafts.   Their primary job is to secure the emotional security of anyone who decides to travel solo or is unwittingly ejected from a raft.   Each of the rapids we raft have been swum safely by hundreds of people, and thousands more are likely to do the same.  It is however, of huge comfort to be greeted by a friendly face like Pauls’ when you have bounced down a mighty Nile rapid dressed in little more than your lifejacket.  From several inches above the surface, the Nile seems much larger than it actually is and already it makes the Thames look like a garden stream.  You have probably had some ‘downtime’ (been underwater) and your feet may have been over your head at some point.  Despite the size of your eyes, our safety kayakers welcome you aboard and offer a level of comfort far greater than most full service airlines in their premium cabins.
When Paul and many of our other safety kayakers joined our team they had grown up alongside the Nile.  As children, they had leapt from the banks, swum across small side currents and perched on the pan-hot black rocks mid-stream in the Nile.  They have now made the river a big part of their everyday lives.  Like their grandfathers who fished the waters before them, they spend the best part of their days in a boat.   However, their grandfathers feared the rapids, dared not to go near them and could not afford to send their children to school.  Our safety kayakers are buying land, building their own houses and making rafting with Adrift one of the most exciting and safest adventure activities on offer anywhere in the world.

Tagged as: safety