White water rafting in Alaska!!!! Whose idea was this anyway???

We arrived in Valdez at 8:00 am. As we were to depart for our white
water rafting excursion at 8:20 am, we did our walk/jog around the track
on the upper deck at 6:00 am. It was really quite enjoyable even if it
was a bit chilly, 54 degrees.

We had been told to dress warmly for this excursion, to bring extra
socks, and a waterproof camera. Our first dilemma - how warm is
warm? We eventually decided to wear pretty much every piece of warm
clothing we had brought. This turned out being way to much clothing but
were able to leave our heavy coats in the van.

Bade and I and eight other fools met up with the van that was to take us
up the Lowe River to where we would "put in" for our rafting adventure.
In our group were a grandmother with her two 12 or 13 year old
granddaughters, a gentleman about 10 years older than us, a thirty
something couple and a father with his twentyish year old son. Sounds a
little like the S. S. Minnow - hopefully without the same result.

The van ride was about 25 minutes past many beautiful waterfalls. Our
driver got a real thrill out of telling us that we would soon be rafting
down the river right under those same waterfalls.

We arrived at the "put in" location and immediately removed our shoes
and were fitted with dry suits and knee high waders. As none of us had
ever worn a dry suit, this was probably quite entertaining for our
guides as we struggled to get these properly fitted. Basically when we
all were dressed, we looked like distant cousins to the Goodyear man.

We were then given a brief orientation which primarily consisted of what
to do if one of us fell out of the raft. We were each given a paddle,
which I suspect was more for show than actual use. Our guide had two
large oars which he used to steer the raft as we quickly floated down
the river.

We were broken into two groups of five each. Fortunately, our group was
made up of the older gentleman, the thirty something couple and Bade and
me. The other group was the dad with his grown son and grandma and her
two granddaughters. Grandma and the two granddaughters proved pretty
much worthless during the journey down the river but I must give Grandma
credit for making the trip at all.

We started our trip with Bade and Mike (the male half of the young
couple) in the front. I was behind Mike with the older gentleman behind
Bade and Jenny behind me. We hit the first rapid and I found myself
sitting on the bottom of the raft. HUM - this could prove to be very
interesting, and cold and oh yeah WET. At the next rapid, Mike almost
fell in. He saved himself by grabbing a hold of me (like I could help
him). He managed to stay in the raft and spent the next five minutes
apologizing for grabbing a complete stranger. I assured him that there
"ain't no pride when you're trapped inside a slowly sinking ship (or in
this case, a rapidly moving raft).

We did in fact go right under where those waterfalls terminated in the
river and yes most of us got fairly wet. Kudos to Bade and Mike for
taking most of the water and shielding the rest of us from the majority
of the really cold water (approximately 36 degrees). The dry suits kept
us surprisingly toasty with only our hands and heads getting really,
really cold.

After about 30 minutes, we were to the place we would be getting off of
the river. Everybody in our raft was really disappointed - we had just
gotten the hang of paddling and were ready to go another 30 minutes or
so. This trip was a ton of fun and hopefully sometime in the future we
can try white water rafting again. The only disappointments - the trip
was not long enough and we did not have time to take any pictures.
Fortunately, our van driver raced down the mountain ahead of us and
stopped in several places to take pictures of us and hopefully when we
get home we will have a CD of those pictures waiting for us.

The town of Valdez is quite small with no promising shopping
opportunities so we arrived back on the ship in time for lunch. Have
rested this afternoon and are looking forward to arrival in Seward
tomorrow. We have scheduled a cruise of Resurrection Bay on a small
sight seeing boat. Nine years ago when I made this trip with my Dad, I
did this same excursion. We saw whales, seals, porpoises and of course
eagles. I hope to be able to get some good whale pictures tomorrow.
While we saw three different pods of whales from our balcony yesterday,
including a pod of orcas, they were too far away and too fast to get any
decent pictures.

That's all from me for now. Bade will add something shortly.

Carolyn

Bade here ... I have very little to add ... the dry suits are basically
bio-hazard suits without the helmet ... a water seal at the neck and
wrists and footsies like pajamas.

Valdez is an interesting choice for Princess as a port ... no other
cruise ships stop here during the summer ... so the Tahitian Princess is
the only ship ... 8 times over the whole summer ... I can't see this as
a money making stop for Princess.

Onward to Seward and to renew our search for whales and other big animals.

Bade