Marnus de Vries' Blog

Marnus vs Vaal river

Thanks to Jean forthe title of this post. I will keep my partner in crime out of this, he can tell his own story. The plan was to get into the Vaal river at Parys (town in the Freestate province in South Africa NOT France) and to paddle down the river to Schoemansdrft, about 40km’s. This trip should take us two days to complete and we had all the logistics sorted out, food, water, communication (draycase for phones) and monitoring water levels. Both of us spend many hours on and around the river with adventure racing and other events so we felt convident on taking on this expedition down the Vaalriver, for the people not familiar with the Vaal river :

The Vaal River is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source in the Drakensberg mountains in Mpumalanga, east of Johannesburg and about 30 km north of Ermelo and only about 240 km from the Indian Ocean. It then flows westwards to its conjunction with the Orange River southwest of Kimberley in the Northern Cape. It is 1,120 km in length, and forms the border between Mpumalanga, Gauteng and North West Province on its north bank, and the Free State on its south.

Water is drawn from the Vaal to meet the industrial needs of the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Area and a large part of the Free State Province. As a part of the Vaal-Hartz Scheme it is a major source of water for irrigation. Water drawn from the Vaal supports 12 million consumers in Gauteng and surrounding areas.

That is the Vaal river!

We where ready for our trip, we had a simple but effective gameplan. Drive to Potch pickup Werner, he will drop us in Parys and arrange with Andries to pick us up on Saturday at Schoemansdrift. We will paddle down the river as far as we feel comfortable on Friday and sleep on one of the islands on the river.

Because of heavy rain falls the previous 2 days the water level in the river increased :
11/12 – 15,07(m3/s)
13/12 – 50,56(m3/s)
16/12 – 303,65(m3/s)

We felt confortable with the 303,65 cubics water per second (m3/s) measured on Thursday, the day before our trip.

BUT things changed!!!!!!!

As we drove over the bridge into Parys, we where silinced by the force of the water. That should have been our warning that things are not what we are expecting them to be. Being adventurious we thought the big waves will just add to the thrill. How true wil that turn out to be.

I said a prayer asking the Lord to protect our boats and equipment and to keep us safe. We launched our boats and the adventire started. The first couple of meters was easy and we felt comfortable that we could handle the water. We went through some class I rapids, very easy and needed no skill to get through, it was fun and we felt in control, she (the mighty Vaal river) was setting us up! We hit a couple of more intense rapids maybe class II or III, it splashed us and now we are wet so we are ready for the rest of the trip.

Some facts about the Vaal river, there is lot’s of islands on the river, specially in the area we where rafting, but there’s NO islands today. Only tree sticking out of masses of water, no piece of island anywhere! This was warning number two we ignored.

Our biggest concern at this time was to keep the inflatables clear of the trees and rock, but steering was made difficult because of the force of the water.

The we had our first man over board experience. The key was to keep the two boats straight when entering a rapid again easier said than done due to the force of the water. We enter a huge rapid and got turned that made it easy for the following rapids to flip me out of the boat. By this time we had warning number 3!!!!!!!

We got back into the boats, settled ourselves down and continued down river. We where heading for the most feared part of the river, but of course we did not know that.

The rest happend so fast it’s hard to recall all the details but this is what i could remember.

I bumped into a tree and that steered me of course, as i was struggling to get my boat turned around the stream which was now flowing at 2 000 m3/s. Just to put that in perspective m3/s,1 cubic metre per second is the same as:
1,000 litres per second
264.172051 US gallons per second

The river was flowing at this point in time at 2000m3/s, this was what we where told a couple of hours later.

Well back to the river, the force of the water slammed me into two trees. Because of the might of the water gussing into the boat the boat was stuck and i was struggling to get a breath of air. Then the boats flipped on to it’s side and i had to hang on to keep my head out of the water. This was hard to do because i was slam dunk in the path of 2000×1000 litres of water per second. I tried to swing the boat around to get it unstuck to get out of this situation. The boats was not moving and i was swallowing gallons of water. Then i slipped and ended up under the boat and i had to make the call, get out! That was the beginning of one of the most intense and also the most surreal experiences i ever had.

I got stuck under the boat, wedged in between the boat and the two tree obstructing the boat. That caused a moment of panic to get out but i could manage to wiggle myself free.
The it was the turn of the rapids to show off the power of the Vaal river. I got mauled by several waves and then one bad ass waves kept me under for a little while, just to mke ure i have swallowed enough water. By this time i realised that i am out gunned, i can not safe myself!

From the first time i got smassed by the force of 2 000 000 litres of water per second i called to Lord to guide me through this. I can remember as i went under the water, which felt like a very long time, i experience extream calmness and as i popped out of the water is asked the Lord to help me. Then i started to praise Him for being the King.

It’s amazing how proper ways to pray and doctrine just fade away in a second, all that mattered at that time for me was to meet Jesus with praise in my heart. Then it was like my sences became numb, i could see but i didn’t hear or feel anything. Not even the water around me and all i could think about was my family, Julia and the boys. In that moment it was as if I had the choice : Stay or Go! I felt calm and relaxed although everything around me was in chaos. Big rapids and strongs waves knocking you about.

Then i said this : “Lord i don’t mind coming home to You, i am ready to go, but i know how this will impact my family, for their sake i will stay. BUT i am in Your hands, do as You will.”

After that i had to engage some more rapids and by this time i was losing conciousness or it was blackout moments. Then i saw my good friens waiting for me way down the river. He got dumped by those huge rapids and the stream took him to this safe place, that same Stream was taking me towards him.

Then it was a battle of the mind on my part to keep things together to get of the river. Thanks to my partner and great friend we made it to solid ground.

We spoke to experts the next morning, that all said the same thing. That stretch of river is to dangerous to engage. A seasoned river rafting professional said : “It will take a mirale for somebody to survive that stretch of water without a boat!” How right you are dude! It was a miracle!

Praise be to King Jesus!

December 21, 2010 Posted by marnusdv | Uncategorized | 1 Comment