A Raft of Problems

Last stop on the cruise itinerary was Vigo in Spain. Vigo is in that bit of Spain on top of Portugal, and the border seems to be the Minho river.

Matt, Harry and I were booked on "Rafting in Vigo" as our last tour, and the Minho river was the destination. "in Vigo" was a bit of a stretch as our journey was over an hour and took us very nearly out of Spain entirely.

Before we got underway with the long bus trip, we had a long unexplained delay in our departure. After some time sitting on the dock, the tour supervisor advised that one of the rafts had broken. Six volunteers to take a different excursion were needed. A full refund was offered, which prompted one group to take this option.

This was the first glitch, and next there was the shambles when we arrived at the river. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the allocation of people to boats and we nearly did not find a boat at all.

Plenty of other people also struggled with the "organization" and by the time our boat was put in the water, we had to take some stray passengers who otherwise may not have launched at all.

This seemed to take the number of rafters from six (which I assumed) to eight (the number that our first boat guide was calling for ) to ten (this is what our second guide went for) then twelve that we set off with.

Our guides were insistent that the overcrowding was down to a significant overbooking by the cruiseline.

This heavy load did appear to cause us some difficulties, especially with many of the passengers being less than enthusiastic paddlers.

Still, the river was beautiful and the mixture of short whitewater sections and longer flat stretches seemed pretty ideal for this kind of excursion.

Some of the rafters complained it was not exciting enough - slightly at odds with their rather lame paddling efforts. Matt of course was among the "more whitewater" group.

As far as I could see, it was challenging enough considering almost all participants were first-timers and that we had undergone precisely zero minutes of tuition on rafting technique. Safety instructions were likewise almost non-existent.

The element of (mild) risk was obvious when (about 1 hour in), we approached a particularly vigorous section and our boat (quite possibly in part due to the overloading) flipped entirely on its side and we had little chance to stay aboard.

Harry & I were on the submerged side, on which no one survived a ducking. Matt was one of only two hangers-on. All the other 10 passengers and the guide were dunked in the river.

At this point, I lost my prescription sunglasses which I only recently replaced having lost the previous pair in the waves on Santa Monica beach last year at about this time. Harry miraculously managed to pick his out of the water before they disappeared.

My wallet of course was fully submerged, but by now I know that cards and banknotes can easily survive this kind of experience. Likewise I knew my phone would have no chance. Even momentary drowning seems to kill phones instantly.

I was not able to catch up with our raft. Another raft picked me up and I had to assume that Matt and Harry had likewise been rescued. Without my glasses I couldn't identify the occupants of other boats at the distances involved.

We were reunited 15minutes later when I was able to reboard the original raft in a calm section.

It was a long paddle to the end - nearly 3 hours of rafting (value for money anyway !) - but none of the subsequent rapids led to a repeat soaking.

The late start and slow passage (exacerbated by overloaded boats I feel) meant that by the time we unloaded, we were only 30minutes away from "all-aboard" time, with a 1 hour bus journey to come.

Our guide reasonably advised us to grab a drink / change / visit the facilities ASAP but unaccountably we waited over 30minutes after we had done all this and so by the time we arrived back in Vigo it was 90minutes past sailing time.

I speculated that Karen would probably have tried to contact me on my defunct phone but I did feel pretty confident that the boat would not leave without 120 rafters and I am sure Karen also was not too concerned despite our obvious delay.

We arrived back at the gangway to a loud and ironic cheer from hundreds of passengers watching and waiting on the dock-facing decks. The boat was sufficiently primed for departure that it was away from the dock in the it took us to ascend i the lift from deck 2 (gangway) to deck 11 (for a welcome cup of tea) !