Tidal Bore Rafting in the Bay of Fundy

So there I was, back in Canada. Gone was the endless snow and relentless cold — it had been replaced by warm temperatures and beautiful nature. An improvement. But knowing that this time we were back in Canada to report on experiences after the fluke viral success of my February holiday video, the stakes were raised.

This time, rather than simply visit Liz’s family in Timmins we attempted a road trip: From Halifax on the East Coast, through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, Quebec and Ontario — ending up at Wasaga beach, where we’d meet her family at their holiday cottage. So this time we were actively hoping for an audience — and audiences demand attention. So it was with a sense of resigned terror that we pre-booked a tidal bore rafting trip. “Whatever happens, it’ll be an anecdote”, I told myself whilst wondering whether being able to pick up a brick from the bottom of the pool for my Grade 3 swimming certificate meant that I was fully equipped for the Canadian wilderness.

We drove out of Halifax to a log cabin in a forest near Truro (everywhere in Nova Scotia is named after places in Britain, it seems) where we parked up and — after signing a safety liability waiver — were given lifejackets and a one-line safety briefing (“Hold on to the rope”). Hey, what could go wrong?

When we got to the river, we climbed aboard the motorboats: They were essentially big rubber floats with an engine strapped to them.

Once we set off everyone got a chance to meet their shipmates as that boat went out to position itself for when the tide came in. As I looked across my fellow-travellers, I couldn’t help but think that this disparate group of people being thrown together in potentially dangerous circumstances was a fairly stock premise for a survival film. And with this in mind, I started to mentally predict the roles we’d all take if we ended up stranded on a desert island, or in the wilderness.

The leader would inevitably be the guy opposite me, who was the spitting image of US Secretary of State John Kerry: He even spoke like him (it was a fast moving boat — you could perhaps say we were Swiftboating with John Kerry). I wondered if his leadership on the island would prove controversial: Perhaps another guy on the boat, who looked like a Republican, would challenge him and the two would fall out. Between them was a shorter woman — who no doubt would stay quiet but possess some vital skill revealed at the right moment, and of course, there was Liz, who thanks to her air cadet training would be the one to find civilisation and keep us alive. There was even a father and young son on the boat — to give our cast of characters an emotional core. Who would I be? Well, I’d be the first to die of course — either to demonstrate the dire circumstances and the increase the tension on screen, or perhaps just as a meal for the others.

The boat trundled out and though bumpy, was less violent than I feared. “Hey, maybe this will be pleasant”, I optimistically thought.

Eventually, the boat reached the incoming tide. The Bay of Fundy is known for one of the highest tides in the world: Just across the other side of the bay is Hopewell Rocks, which has the biggest difference in water level between high tide and low tide in the world. When the tide is out, it is possible to walk for miles on the sea floor — so the incoming water makes a big difference. The story was similar on the rafting side too.

The instructor positioned the boat just ahead of a large bridge and pointed at the sandbars (essentially pillars of sand poking up above the water’s surface), which would be submerged in mere minutes. It was here that we waited for the first waves to arrive.

Suddenly with a crash, the waves broke over us and the aquatic assault had begun. With each incoming ripple of water making me grip the safety rope even tighter.

The water was relentless — up and down we went, with the boat’s pilot manoeuvring into the waves to maximise the impact. As the cold water reached my waist, and splashed directly into my face, the only thing separating Canada’s paramedics from a doomed attempt to revive a bloated corpse was a wet, thin rope which I was struggling to hold on to.

The only advice we’d been given was if it gets rough, lean in. Don’t move with the motion of the boat, as that would throw us out — lean in, presumably to maintain the boat’s centre of gravity. Despite being born an unwilling member of the patriarchy, never had Sheryl Sandberg’s quasi-feminist advice seemed so relevant to me.

The waves continued — seemingly forever. Inexplicably, everyone else on the boat had broad grins on their faces and were laughing when we hit the waves. I was instead wondering whether I had a change of underpants in my suitcase.

Every so often, we’d get an even bigger wave, which when we rolled over sent the front of the boat sharply downwards and the back of the boat into the air. And a torrent of river water was thrown into our faces. It was during one of these waves that I saw one of the women opposite me spit out a mouthful of Canadian nature in a little spout motion — exactly like you might see in a cartoon.

The ride went on for over a hour — and I did begin to wonder whether the instructors had massively over-estimated my upper-body strength. How much longer could I take this? And how much longer could the boat take it? At certain points water flooded the vessel to the extent that it was more like being in an open-top submarine than a machine designed to float.

I began to assume that being thrown out of the boat was more or less an inevitability. After all, just weeks earlier I’d somehow managed to tip a canoe on a perfect summer’s day in Wales. The river was completely still, we’d travelled several miles and the end point was close — yet with only about 100m to go, the boat rocked one way, I rocked the other, and before I knew it a metal boat was pushing me into the water and my shoe was being swept off towards the sea.

This led to further worrying: What if I did fall out but didn’t get stuck with my travelling companions? Liz, of course, would be fine surfing on her own — she’d have a fire burning and will have skinned a wild bear within minutes. She could probably whittle a flare-gun from some twigs and be rescued within hours. If I were stuck in the wilderness on my own, unless it turns out that wolves will go away after being beaten at Tony Hawks 3 on Gamecube, I’d be screwed.

As it turned out though — it was exhilarating and like nothing I’d experienced before. The sensation of being thrown up and down in the water, and watching a man power a machine through it, as it was engulfed was astonishing.

Whilst I tightened my hands around the safety rope, I learned to appreciate just how thoroughly man had mastered nature — and I realised that, hey, even if I did fall in, this guy had a motorboat that could drive through anything. So I’d probably be fine, right? What I didn’t realise at the time, but what later struck me as surprising, was that whenever the water was thrown in our faces it was warm.

Eventually, after lots of bumping up and down — we started to head back to shore, but not before stopping off so that the more adventurous could slide down the mudbanks of the river.

We made it back to dry land, where the pontoon that had previously been on dry land was now floating high on top of the surface of the water — which was now several meters higher up.

After kissing the ground and getting changed, rather than reflect on what a remarkable experience it had been, we instead drove barefoot to the nearest Walmart, to buy replacement shoes for the ones that had just been given a thorough bath in the bay of Fundy.

What an experience.