him, they ran the risk of piling into each other. Also, George was the
strongest kayaker and felt most comfortable in the rear. The three were
only several paddle-lengths apart from each other. There was only one
tricky maneuver on the course they had chosen through the rapid. As
George began the maneuver, he realized that his kayak was too heavy to
navigate the sharp left turn and then accelerate into the narrow, rockless
shoot that Randy and Ken used. Too late to turn around, George plunged
his paddle into the water, pushing a hard left backstroke. It scrubbed
his momentum and his kayak drifted perpendicular with the flow of
the water. Unable to accelerate out of the turn, the current pinned him
against a large boulder. The right edge of kayak slid up the sloping
boulder and the weight of its contents pushed the left side down into the
gushing water. The water rushed into the edge of the kayak, flipping it
violently.
In minutes, George was ashore, unharmed. Randy and Ken
shouted to him, but their voices were drowned out by the rapids. His
gear was far under the rocky current or washed into the lake downstream,
including his fiberglass kayak. He realized, Ken and Randy could not
come back for him the way they had gone because of the current and the
rapids. They would have to take a big loop to get back to him, but even
if they did, there was no seat for him in their kayaks. The satellite phone,
which George volunteered to carry, was among the rocks, underwater in
the same bag as the first aid kit. Having no ability to help George, Ken
and Randy continued with the itinerary. They would get George help as
soon as the float plane picked them up in twelve days.
Looking at the map and exploring his surroundings, George saw
that he was on a sports-field-sized island, flanked on both sides by swift,
white rapids. He lobbed a fallen branch, the size of his arm into the
rapids. He lost sight of it the instant the branch hit the water as it was
sucked under the churning vortexes. Without a canoe or a helicopter,
the island was inescapable. Even the best of swimmers would be playing
roulette to swim in the tumultuous waters and George had already gotten
lucky once. He could not see how two out of the three of them shot
the rapids without spilling out. He wondered what they were thinking.
George knew that leaving the island would be a violation of one of
the biggest rules for survival: do not stray far from where you were last
seen. Search parties in Manitoba rely on aerial observation to search the
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