TRAVEL
Big Water Bob
My first day rowing the biggest whitewater run on the planet in 1984
The deeper the rumble, the bigger the rapid, and Number Five thundered like a freight train. Downstream the river disappeared over a horizon line into a halo of spray pulsing to the beat of unseen explosions.
We rowed our two rafts to the left shore and tied up. Everyone went to look at the rapid. I stayed behind to adjust the thole pins, trying to leverage the oar handles higher. Sweat dripped into my eyes as I tightened the Allen screws that held the oarlock. My hands didn’t shake, but I was quaking inside. I stopped and said to myself, “Breathe, man.” When I had made all the adjustments possible I hurried along the hot rock ledges to catch up.
The six clients were starting to snap photos while our four Zambian High-siders hung out in the shade. When I joined Butch and Jeff on a ledge above the rapid, Bob turned to us with a wicked grin and said, “Welcome to the Zambezi.”
Involuntary moans came from each of us: “Whoa!” “Wow!” “Oh shit!”
Below us a river-wide, thirty-foot waterfall broke in the center with a narrow V-shaped tongue that exploded skyward like a splay of wild feathers. This rooster tail flicked back and forth across the slot slapping the water with a playful fury.
Bob said, “You need to ride that rooster tail, just slightly to the right with your left tube on the tail. Any further right and the pour-over will eat you up. It gave one guy four broken ribs and a collapsed lung.”
The river poured over a car-sized rock so smoothly that sunlight glowed through, before it plunged off the backside into a massive reversal. A thundering diagonal wave from the pour-over formed the right side of the tongue we were supposed to ride.
Bob pointed to a confusion of whitewater below the entry. “The cereal bowl wave below the drop will crush your raft. At that point you will probably be in the bottom of the boat wondering what just hit you, but get up and grab your oars! Just when you think you’re home free, that final diagonal tail wave from the right will flip you … if you haven’t flipped already. You only have a few seconds to turn the boat and face it, which is hard to do with a raft full of water. And that, my friends, is the Ten Kwacha Tightrope.”
The details scrambled my brain. It was hard to imagine a way through. My mouth may have been agape.
Bob said, “I’ll go first, so you can see my run. Watch where I line up. It’s critical. You won’t be able to see the rapid from river level until you’re right above it. You see those two little waves about a boat length above the slot?”
I nodded.
“Aim for those. Row lightly over the first one and touch the second with your stern. Then swing the nose downstream and you’ll be able see down the rapid. You should be lined up for the rooster tail. Whatever you do, don’t go into that pour-over.”
Butch said, “You’re going to row it alone? There’ll be no one to help you if you flip.”
Bob yawned. “That’s okay. I’ve run it dozens of times. We only scout to show you new guys.” Bob took one more look at the rapid, turned and walked back to his raft, joking with his six clients along the way.
We waited, pointing out features and debating consequences. The rapid mesmerized me. Plotting a line through it was like choreographing a fistfight. I saw the line Bob intended, but it seemed to run straight into a three-punch combination. How hard would the river hit back? I stood stock still studying the rapid, calibrating, guessing consequences. I took another long swig of water, but found myself parched no matter how much I drank.
Soon Bob floated down the left side of the river fighting to keep his angle in the swirling currents. He approached the two small marker waves, pulled over the first and touched the second, pivoted his bow downstream and descended into the slot, just the way he said he would.
When the raft hit the rooster tail, the bow curled back on itself and then folded forward, as the raft snaked over the wave, snapping the stern skyward. A passenger catapulted into the air from the back of the boat, over Bob’s head, and plunged into the river just as the raft disappeared into another mountain of whitewater. When they emerged Bob was frantically yanking at his oars to turn the raft toward the tail wave. Bob dropped his oars and climbed the side of the raft, yelling, “High side!” The raft rose up on the wave until it was nearly vertical. Some clients grabbed the frame, some fell into the bilge, one made it to the high side, but fell back pulling the raft with him. Silhouettes of bodies filled the air. The raft lurched through the next waves upside down, as six passengers popped to the surface and raced downstream.
Bob held onto the side of the raft, pulled himself up by the spare oar, heaved his shoulders onto the bottom of the raft, swiped his hand up to the flip line and dragged himself onto the bottom of boat. He stood and pulled back on the line. The raft rose into the air as he leaned further towards the water like a windsurfer setting sail. It hesitated at the tipping point and then the raft flopped over, right-side up, tossing Bob back into the water. Bob emerged and launched himself back into the boat, got to the oars, and chased down his clients as the raft floated out of sight around the bend.
We stared in stunned silence. I said, “Well…I guess that’s the run.”
We walked back to the raft like condemned men. I heard a few snippets of hopeful encouragement from our four Zambian High-siders.
How could I row Bob’s line and not flip? I had to dial up my optimism to denial level.
The Zambezi River crosses the southern half of Africa from Congo to Mozambique. When it slides between Zambia and Zimbabwe, it becomes the greatest falling curtain of water on the planet, plunging three hundred feet into the first of seven narrow gorges that slash back and forth across the basalt plateau like lightning bolts. The ground shakes as mist shoots high in the sky earning its name, Mosi-oa-tunya, The Smoke that Thunders, or, to western minds, Victoria Falls.
Locals feared the river since time immemorial. The gorge had never been navigated until 1981, when the fifteen-year Rhodesian Bush War ended, and Sobek (the only international rafting company in the world) rafted the first descent below the falls. In six days Sobek’s finest guides, with a film crew and guest stars, racked up five flipped rafts, one evacuation, and multiple croc attacks. Nonetheless, Sobek decided that the post-war return of tourists to Victoria Falls would make the Zambezi a stellar attraction, if they could find guides to crazy enough to row it.
In 1984 I finally made it into the exclusive Sobek international river guide team, but the opportunity wasn’t as fabulous as it seemed. No senior Sobek guide wanted to take the daily beating the Zambezi dished out in its powerful rapids, the threat of crocodiles, or the malaise of malaria — all for five dollars a day and sixty Kwacha, which was worthless outside of Zambia. I paid nine hundred dollars for my airfare over and hoped to make enough Kwacha to buy a ticket home. But none of that mattered. I was there to run some big water and prove myself to Sobek. That’s what we all came for.
Butch, Jeff, and I had arrived the night before from California to a dusty warehouse compound in Livingstone, Zambia. Sobek’s goal was to run a wildly dangerous river without major injuries and gain the trust of the local travel agents to make the operation a success. I was soon to meet the only guide who had worked two seasons on the Zambezi, Big Water Bob.
In the morning, I swung open the door to Bob’s room. “They sent me to wake you up.”
A commotion twirled the bed sheets, out of which Bob and an African girl emerged. Bob shouted, “Did you ever hear of knocking?”
“Sorry.” I swung the door shut and addressed the doorknob. “I’m ready when you are.”
Ten minutes later, a large, blond, ruddy-faced Minnesotan shuffled across the warehouse with a paunch straining his white t-shirt. “Come ‘on. Let’s get the truck started.” Big Water Bob didn’t look to me like the superstar his name implied.
Behind the warehouse, Bob climbed into the cab of a big rusty truck and turned the key. The engine moaned. We rousted more guides to help push the truck down the drive where it coughed once and rumbled to life.
I jumped into the cab with Bob. “I’m Frenchy. Sorry about walking in on you.”
Bob shrugged, “That’s OK. I had a big night. There was beer in town! When Livingstone gets a shipment of Mosi Lager, the town shuts down and drinks ‘til it’s gone.” He flashed a shy warm smile, almost like he was embarrassed, an “aw shucks” Midwestern thing I recognized. “It wasn’t gone until three in the morning.”
Bob hung his wrist over the steering wheel and chuckled. “We gotta pick up the High-siders at Nakatindi compound. This gang used to hang out at the curio shops by the Intercontinental Hotel. Now they’re our gang and we call them High-siders, not porters. It’s a thing of pride. They carry our gear down to the river and rig our rafts. In the afternoon they carry everything up the hill for us.
They often ride the river with us. We’re training them to guide.” He turned his palm skyward. “Eventually. It’s a pretty tough river to learn on. You, Jeff and Butch will share a raft today and carry four High-siders with you to fill out your boat.”
We drove dirt roads to an enclave of thatch-roofed huts and cinder-block houses where a dozen young Africans waited.
“Mule bwange,” Bob shouted.
Smiles and salutations bounced back and forth, as they piled in the back of the truck.
Bob said, “I’m learning Nyanga.”
“Were you here all year?”
He nodded. “I love it. It’s like the old west — wild. And I love the women”
“I noticed,” my turn to flash an embarrassed Midwestern smile.
We drove through town along the main street which was wide and paved as if it had hoped for bigger things long ago. Small trees and rotting mangoes lined the road. In the back of the truck, laughter turned to song, a impromtu call and response, accompanied by drumming on the truck panels.
At the warehouse we loaded the truck with all the gear for a two-boat, one-day trip and drove the Intercontinental Hotel by the Falls. While High-siders unloaded the truck, the four of us walked through a garden to a courtyard.
Up a few steps from the pool, smiling Zambians in crisp kitchen uniforms were serving a breakfast buffet. Bob gestured to the display, “We meet our clients here, so working guides eat for free.”
We filled our plates and huddled at poolside table. Bob gave us the rundown. Sobek was running a seven-day trip with clients from the States and a one-day for whatever locals they could attract. The one-day trip only had ten rapids, but most were giants.
One guide had told me it was like rowing all the largest rapids in the Grand Canyon in one day, without scouting. Robbie Pitagora had the record for flips — three in one day. There were so many rapids for the first twenty miles, they numbered them so guides wouldn’t get confused.
Notorious number Five hadn’t appeared to have a navigable run on the first descent. They had planned to portage it, but John Kramer thought he saw a line. John Yost bet him ten Kwacha he couldn’t make it. He made it, naming the run the Ten Kwacha Tightrope. Of course right after that, Dave Shore flipped his paddleboat in the monster pour-over and they had to evacuate a paddler by helicopter. Number Five flipped more rafts than any other rapid.
Was I up for this? I was only a third year guide. When Curt Smith urged me to take the position, I said I needed more experience — I wasn’t ready, but he insisted I had the skills. It was a rare chance to get into Sobek. Fake it ’til you make it.
After breakfast, Bob met his clients for a safety talk while Jeff, Butch and I hiked down to the river chatting excitedly. The muffled sound of crashing waves grew louder until we broke out of the foliage into the gorge.
Downstream a metal bridge arched hundreds of feet over the river. Upstream cliffs peeled back to reveal a glimpse of Victoria Falls. The Zambezi squeezed through that gap, pooled briefly, then plowed down a series of standing waves that would be fun had they not slammed straight into a ninety-degree bend in the gorge.
At our feet a hundred yards of angry water swirled upstream along a shoreline of jagged black rocks. The drumbeat of exploding waves echoed off the walls.
We picked our way across the jumble of rocks to the top of the eddy where two, grey, eighteen-foot rafts bobbed by the shoreline.
We helped pass gear onto the boats. High-siders lashed a frame on the raft, dropped a cooler in for a seat, slid oars onto thole pins, and clipped bail buckets inside bow and stern (self-bailing rafts were not known then). Spare oars were tied with quick release knots alongside of the raft.
We boarded our raft and checked the rigging, tightening screws and testing knots.
Jeff said, “Let’s rotate rapids. I’ll go first”
Butch said with a sly smile, “I go third.”
“Okay. I’ll go second.” I’d been had. I would have to row rapid Number Five.
Bob arrived with six clients and helped fit them into life jackets. He escorted the passengers into his raft and showed them how to hang on and when to lunge to the high-side to prevent the raft from flipping. Four High-siders (Elias, Joseph, Alick, and Sunday) took positions in the front of our raft. Butch and I sat in the rear to better see the rapids and watch the Jeff row.
Usually launching a raft is a casual maneuver, but this shot right into the first rapid. High-siders untied Bob’s raft from the cliff and held it tight. His passengers gripped ropes and looked about nervously. Bob held the oars forward with the blades at the back of the boat, ready to stroke — secured onto the raft like a rodeo rider sitting a bronc in the chute. Bob tested his oars, checked once around the raft and nodded to let her buck. High-siders pushed him into the current. Whoosh — he was gone, stroking wildly for the far shore.
We quickly followed. At first Jeff had a good upstream angle across the current, but after a half-dozen strokes we were swept into the waves. He worked across the waves as much as he could while taking them head-on. Waves broke over the bow all the way to the back of the raft, drenching me with a cool shock. Our raft surfed the cushion wave off the wall and we spun downstream, a good start to the day.
I rowed the next rapid, a small beautiful surf wave. Butch rowed the third, a forgettable minor rapid next to the other beauties.
As we rounded the corner into the third gorge, Elias stuffed his baseball cap down the front of his life jacket and said, “You do this, if you want to keep your hats.”
Glad I did. Number Four hit us like a water cannon. We rode the edge of a wave that shot into the breakers rolling off the right wall. The volume of water that hit us was overwhelming. We rocked over the last waves with water overflowing the raft. Jeff shouted, “Bail!” We unclipped buckets and went to work.
Soon we rounded the bend to the forth gorge and I heard the roar of Rapid Number Five where we tied up to scout.
As we returned from watching Bob’s run, fear churned my gut like a shot of bourbon.
I dunked myself in the river, put on my lifejacket, stuffed my hat away, sat on the cooler and watched Elias coil the rope and tuck it under the perimeter line. I knew the line to take. I knew my markers. No use thinking anymore about the rapid. I sunk my focus into each action, one at a time. I took up the oars and nodded. Elias shoved our raft out as he jumped in front.
The High-siders coiled themselves into battle formation, ready to strike.
I said over my shoulder, “Y’all hang on back there.”
Butch said, “Don’t worry!”
Into the sun I searched for those two little waves that marked the entry. After a few struggles with the current pushing the raft around, I stood up and squinted downstream. The explosions of the rapid pounded in my chest. We floated closer. Finally I saw two lines of white from the marker waves. I set my angle, pulled over the first marker wave to the second wave, and turned the bow downstream.
The rapid revealed itself. We were in the right position, poised on the crest of a steep roller coaster. Before us, the rooster tail juked right and left like a cagey linebacker. It looked terrifying. I pushed hard on the oars and we dropped in.
We rode up the rooster tail and four High-siders slammed themselves into the bow. They broke through the wave with their heads and shoulders hanging far out the front of the raft like a bowsprit, and we rode down into a second trough of breaking whitewater. The onrush slammed me to the floor still holding the oars in my hands above my head. I launched myself back onto the cooler and dug my oars into the current even though I could barely see where we were. We shot toward the tail wave. I squared the raft to it, leaned into both oars and pushed into its face. The High-siders leaped to the bow and carried us over the wave.
Silence of disbelief hung in the air. Then we all cheered, hooted, and whistled with joy. I rowed the brimming raft through the rest of the tail waves. I was laughing hard. We had made it! I took a big breath and smiled. I’m on the Zambezi River, in Africa, God dammit! How great is that?
Seeing the High-siders leap about the raft was a revelation. In the States, passengers never let go in a rapid, except to avoid disaster. The High-siders lunged all the way onto the bow of the raft whenever we hit a large wave. They piled on top of each other like a rugby scrum and then returned to their normal positions when the wave subsided. They rolled left or right when a wave hit us sideways. They were the reason I made it through Number Five right-side up, and Bob didn’t. It was a lesson I would never forget.
Butch rowed Number Six, avoiding a huge whirlpool that could swallow half a raft and spin it like a teacup. Just after that, we saw Bob waving us over from the right shore. We pulled in. Bob had already laid out lunch in the shade of a small canyon.
Everyone recounted Bob’s flip, each with a different viewpoint. Bob shrugged it off — just another day in the office. He had retrieved all his clients quickly, except one who swam Number Six. Tough expats from the copper mines in Ndola, they seemed in great spirits. The guy who swam Number Six was bubbling with details of his swim and how deep the whirlpool had taken him, “down, down, to darkness, then light, then darkness again and then poof, I hit the surface.”
After lunch, we ran Seven, the most technical run of the day. We cheated number Eight along the right shore, portaged Nine (mandatory), and caught the eddy after a fun wave train at Number Ten.
High-siders swarmed over our rafts and started de-rigging before we even stepped ashore. The trail out was a dirt path so steep I had to stop to catch my breath, pretending to look at the scenery. High-siders passed me carrying awkward loads, barefoot, sweat streaking their dusty faces, but flashing big white-toothed smiles. When I reached the top of the cliff, I drained the last of my water as gnats swarmed in front of my face. The plateau stretched flat into the distance with sparse trees and dry grass.
Bob directed the loading of the truck. He had casually run the biggest rapid on the river without support so I could learn. I know of very few guides in the Grand Canyon who would row Lava or Crystal, alone, for any reason. In the states, guides obsess over a flip, but he ignored it just as he ignored the gnats around his eyes. Unfazed, jovial, he was a hero here, in his element. He certainly earned my respect and his moniker, Big Water Bob.
We helped the guests climb onto the back of the truck. The guides jumped on and Bob yelled to the High-siders, “What time is it?”
They answered “Tien time!”
Bob said, “Tien means let’s go.” He leaned over the side to the driver, tapped on the roof of the cab, and yelled, “Tien! Tien!”
Postscript: Bob now lives in Nsongwe village near the takeout for the old one-day trip with his wife Bridget. And he still runs the river! They are restoring the ecosystem there for the village. You can help that cause here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/recover-nsongwe-river-ecosystem-in-zambia?utm_campaign=p_nacp+share-sheet&utm_medium=more&utm_source=customer
For a great story about Sobek’s first descents read River Gods, by Richard Bangs and Christian Kallen.
