Kayaking with a Camera

I lost my camera.

Preceding the incident was of course, when I was geared up and ready to kayak with 4 other participants (including Siew), When all the safety details and instructions were made known to us (which involved terrifying bits of things such as the possibility of being entangled with trees, rushing undercurrents, breaking of a limb, etc), I was all excited and nervous at the same time.

Would I capsize and drown? Would I get entangled with dead trees? Would I lose my camera? All these excessive pessimism which is quite uncharacteristic of me enveloped me, but I got on with it anyway.

So yes there were rapids. Exciting. The torrent of water pushing your kayak was both daunting yet adrenaline-pumping even though it’s just a Grade 1-2 river.

And how did I lose my camera?

On our second rapid, my boat brilliantly capsized due to our immature handling of the kayak, and I submerged in the river before emerging again flabbergasted and gasping for air. I was desperately swimming towards the kayak while the currents pulled me, while Siew reached our overturned kayak and succeeded in turning it over. He climbed onto it, I clinged onto it and tried to get up and that was when I heard something snap and I went “Fuck”.

I knew what exactly snapped, and that was the camera hanging in its waterproof bag around my neck. I was stupid enough to place it there in the first place, and as I tried desperately to press the camera against the kayak while trying to grab onto it blindly (I didn’t know if the camera was still in between my body in the first place anyway), in the end I had to release myself and with a little bit of help from Siew and the assistant tour guide, I was pulled up.

If panic has a face, it was mine at that instant. I was already beginning to develop drastic post-disaster plans which involved purchasing a cheap new camera for the remainder of the trip, because yes, a camera’s the life of any trip for me.

I muttered something to Siew about my camera falling into the river, and a minute later he asked “Is that your camera?” while pointing to a floating transparent bag and I screamed “YES!”

He tried to get a hold of it but failed, and that was when Agetha, the Dutch woman who was with us, and the tour guide passed by in their kayak and she deftly grabbed it from the river. I heaved a sigh of relief, thanked her profusely, and we went to enjoy the rest of the kayaking trip.

That’s the story of how I lost my precious camera in a whole minute. (I’ve more to blog, but I’ll wait till I go to another cybercafé or town with a better cheaper Internet connection with less inclination to have its IP blacklisted.)

And it shall (hopefully) never reoccur again.

(Internet here is expensive (300kip/minute, an hour = 18000/kip = roughly USD$2 = about RM7), the IP in this town is blacklisted, and I’m asking Jon to help me post this.)