Whitewater Rafting Blog

In 1953, the 60-year-old Willis sailed a homemade balsa-wood raft over 4,000 miles across the Pacific from Peru to American Samoa, accompanied only by a cat and a foul-mouthed parrot. Novelist Pearson (Glad News of the Natural World) gives a rousing retelling of how, along the way, Willis endured a hernia and a perforated ulcer, sewed up an artery ruptured by a shark’s tooth and survived on seawater after running out of fresh. He details Willis’s eccentric diets, yogic breathing exercises and mystic spirituality, his half-baked, spur-of-the-moment planning, and the uncanny luck and superhuman hardiness that saw him through the rafting crises. Continue reading →

Two rafting fatalities this month aren’t keeping people off popular whitewater rivers north of Boise, and the number of fatalities versus the number of participants shows that it’s a relatively safe activity.

Rafters like Jen Compton of Boise continue what they consider an exciting sport by knowing the river, their paddling crew and whitewater safety. Continue reading →

ACCORDING to the Miami Herald, the balmy weather of the first week of June brought more than 70 Cubans in makeshift boats to the United States. There they were welcomed with open arms. Granma, Cuba’s official newspaper, has a different tale to tell. Irresponsible American laws are luring Cubans to their deaths. This year alone, 160 “delinquents” have been picked up at sea and returned. Continue reading →