I haven’t been river rafting since 1985 when I took a trip to the Grand Tetons with my brother.

Since I have been such a stellar help with John’s SCUBA diving classes, I was invited to go on his almost yearly (depending on rainfall) trip to raft the American River.

John was a river guide twenty years ago and has all his own equipment.

We left Torrance Friday morning and drove the entire day to Sacramento airport to pick up a rental car that we could use for the ride back up river.

Our only stop was at the Catfish House in Modesto for some down home cookin’.

Going cheap, we rented a couple nice rooms at a Super-8 Motel in El Dorado County.

The next morning we dropped our return vehicle at the bottom of the river and headed up to ChiliBar to launch the raft…

John inflates the raft as the others supervise.

Our group shot for insurance purposes!

From left to right – Jeff W, John, Me and Allan – John’s son.

We were soon off on our one day adventure that most commercial rafters break up in to a two day trip.

One the first day, most commercial outfits start in the middle of the river and raft down the lower portion as it’s a lot calmer.

The second day is when they start at ChileBar and end in the middle.

There’s me looking as macho as ever.

We see the next set of approaching rapids and John and Jeff laugh…

Forgive me, but I don’t know the names of any of these rapids…

After shooting through the top half of the river, we ate lunch under the bridge at River Park Village…

Some ducks try and crash our lunch…

Back on the river we went…

Historical mining replicas are all along the river.

The stretch after lunch is rather flat… and boring…

…I ended up taking a swim to cool off.

I know it looks like I’m trying to fart, but I’m actually trying to hold the camera still for a self portrait.

…and we eventually reach another potentially lethal rapid…

Up and over!

The day is winding down and we are all tired…

Luckily when we reach the mouth of the lake, a bunch of jet skis are willing to tow us to the parking lot… for $10 cash…

We packed up the raft and all the equipment and drove back up river to pick up the other vehicle…

We left early that morning for an uneventful trip back – that is until we broke down near Gorman…

We were on the side of the road for hours until we got a tow to Gorman to await a flatbed for the ride back to the South Bay.

So am I now a Diving Professional?

Compensation Received: A T-shirt, free food and the ability to write off the boat trip as a donation to charity.

So here’s how the event works:

A certified diver pays, I think $35 or $40 and registers for the event.

The participant receives an event T-shirt and is entered in a raffle.

The divers dive at a particular time and search for metal numbered stars that are redeemable for prizes.

The proceeds go to help the Two Harbor’s decompression chamber and the Sheriff’s Department.

Me in the center, Instructor John to my left.

The Safety Crew!

I am to the back, far right.

I look so macho!

I was positioned with Bob half way between the stairs and the end of the park going left (facing the water from the stairs).

Bob was on the rocks most of the time; I was mostly in the water.

I floated on the side in the water; Bob was on the rocks over looking our section of the park during the event.

Divers kept coming up to me and asking if I was alright. “Uh, yeah, are you?” I responded.

Someone even handed me a star; Steve said that I should have kept it.

A few divers were tired.

One girl almost panicked.

She was yelling at her boyfriend to “Go ahead and go in if you want.”

She kept taking her mask and hood off.

Other divers were pointed out to me, at least the ones who had to be pulled out on previous years.

Apparently, the lady that I just mentioned had to be pulled out of the water the previous year.

The event started at 11 AM; at 12:30 PM Steve yelled over to us, “We have four divers still in the water!”

I yelled back, “Do you want me to start looking for their bodies?”

The spectators who overheard me were a bit shocked, Steve just laughed.

John, who was in one of three Kayaks, said that there was a much better quality of divers this year.

No rescues, but good experience.