"Treat" of the Week

The "Treat" of the week this weeks comes from Sam Duprey's last email to me from Chile. He was there for ten days after I left and had one more group of clients. This is the story of how his last float trip in Chile went.. It certainly did not go as planned...

Last wednesday, I drive down to do the Manihuales with the two guests- who are serious contenders for least favorite all season. Rex runs the shuttle for us, and we talk about how high the water is, and how fast the float is going to be. He tells me to be careful with the big water. I tell him not to worry, its the last float of the season, nothing will go wrong (whoops). Now, these guests are real world-beaters, so we are on the manihuales at 11:15, a full hour before we usually start the float. With the high fast water, and the wind blowing downstream, we are flying through the float. Pass the normal lunch site at 12:45. I stop the boat on the gravel bar where we had our little chat with sebastian- that gravel bar essentially gone, but there are a few small rocks just sticking out of the water so i can beach the boat on it while the guests wade that little channel down the left bank. I do this because there is no way to slow down the float on the normal right bank, the water is moving way too fast, and none of those logs are sticking out of the water, literally none of them. It was that way all and up and down the river that day, no logs sticking out anywhere, no rocks, it was just way too high, and the water was chocolate milk. Anyway, we wade that section for a little bit. Then we get in the boat. I hope to have lunch on the Niregua confluence so they can fish eggs for a bit and hopefully pick up a few more fish. No dice. No riffle there anymore. No spots to pull over for lunch. Water too high. So, I pull the boat over downstream right just after where the Nirequa comes in, just above the long slow bank. Also, the long slow bank (above the sewage treatment plant) has serious current coming down it, so I dont know how long I will be able to fish it, but right now its lunch, and I'mm happy to eat. Pasta salad day- Fernando forgot to put his secret sauce on. So, pasta salad with nothing on it except Aji. Woof. Anyway, as im cleaning up, the wind switches directions out of nowhere, and starts blowing real hard upstream. Blows lunch stuff all over the palce. I scramble to pick it up. After a minute I get it all back together and notice that... the raft is floating down the middle of the river, with nobody in it, and all of our gear in it... AWESOME..

At first I try to see if I can wade to it, but of course, that long 'slow' stretch is deep as hell, too deep to wade even on a normal day, and the river is real high that day. So I run downstream, thinking I can cross at the gravel island below the sewage treatment plant (which is mostly underwater now). I get down there (before the boat cause im running my ass off) and there is no way to wade across, way too deep. But the boat has blown all the way to the far side of the river, and is making its way downstream fast. I've got no choice here. All of our gear is in the boat, I can't lose all that gear, plus the boat. And, even if I gave up on the boat, we had no way of getting back across the river and getting to the car. Needed that boat. Nowhere else to cross. So I stripped down to my underarmour, and jumped in...

After about 5 yards of swimming my muscles freeze up. I think partly from running 500 yards down the river bank in all my waders and shit, and mostly from the cold. I am swimming as hard as I can, but keep getting swept downstream. No lie, I thought I was going to die. I was like "I'm going to die my last week here in this shithole country, this sucks". By some miracle I make it across the river, but the current has swept me a full 200 yards downstream of the gravel island. I sit on the far bank, freezing my ass off, waiting for the boat to come by. After 10 mintues, no show. I think damnit- I just swam across this damn river and got hypothermia just to have the boat flip and lose all the gear anyway. I climb higher up on the bank and see that the boat is stuck in a tree right at the shit plant. So I climb two barbed wire fences and run a few hundred yards upstream to the boat, barefoot. It's a steep cut bank below the shit plant, so I have to jump into the tree the boat is stuck on. Then climb down the tree. Then, as I get to the lower branches of the tree, the boat starts coming loose. So, I jump out of the tree, back into the water, swim after the boat downstream. Catch, and get in just in time to start rowing before the boat flips over a log in that little side channel. Row back around the island and to the right bank. Tie the boat up, get dressed, walk all the way back up to the lunch site, get the cooler and table, walk all the way back down to the boat, and explain to the douche bag father that his winston rod is gone, donated to the manihuales. so now i have to buy him a new rod. Worst day of guiding in my life. I froze my ass off for the rest of the float while just the kid fished for 3 hours, and didn't get a single strike. I won't miss you Chile...