According to an Outdoor Industry Association report, roughly 20 percent of the 4.5 million Americans who went rafting in 2010 were first-timers. That’s a lot of fresh confetti. But don’t despair; the following is a must-know inventory of rafting idiolect (no, that isn’t an insult—look it up).

Must-know inventory of rafting idiolect

Pushing rubber (v.) Raft guide’s job.

Oar whore (n.) Seasoned raft guide who is reliable and good enough to row for different companies on different rivers, a rare and dying breed.

GORB (n.) Good Old Rafting Buddy.

Get down (v.) Move to a more secure position on the raft floor, typically above a drop where there is a high probability of falling out. If you blow it, you’ll be thankful for the…

Chicken line (n.) Perimeter line on a raft, grab it after falling out. Grab it if you’re chicken.

High side (n. & v.) 1. The tube that is pushed upward when a raft comes up against a rock or hole sideways. 2. The act of crew jumping from the low side of the boat to the high side— when executed in time, this can prevent a flip or wrap.

Taco (v.) When a raft folds around an obstacle. AKA: burrito, wrap.

Dump truck (v.) When everyone except the guide is ejected from the raft. AKA: bus stop.

Clean plate (n.) When everyone including the guide is spilled out but the raft does not flip.

Yard sale (n.) Colorful assortment of swimmers and gear following a flip. AKA: confetti, garage sale.

Sweep boat (n.) 1. The last boat in a group of rafts, the sweep brings up the rear and makes sure no one gets left behind. 2. Large, commercial cargo boat used on the Middle Fork and Main Salmon rivers.

Groover (n.) Metal box that holds solid human waste on a river trip, most often used in the arid Southwest.

Groover duty (n.) Chore typically assigned to the lowest ranking or least popular member of a river party, involves setting up the groover at camp and cleaning it post-trip.

Snakebite (n.) Small hole in a raft that can be heard but not seen, detected by the hissing of escaping air.

SPORT (n.) Stupid People On Rafting Trips. See also: GORB.

Bow puppy (n.) Person riding in the bow of an oar rig, does not assist with paddling or steering.

Speed bump (n.) Kayaker who doesn’t get out of the way of a raft.

Baptism (n.) Raft guide’s first swim. 

This article first appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of Rapid Magazine.

Leon met Shawna 21 years ago in a kayak rolling pool session at the University of Minnesota, where they were both studying biology.“The instructor told us to find someone with the same length legs,” remembers Shawna. “ This way we would not have to keep adjusting the foot pegs inside the kayak we were sharing.” This turned out to be fine dating advice.

The two then worked as guides for Shearwater Adventures, a kayak tour company based on Orcas Island, Washington. While there, they developed an instructional program, which they ran for six years before breaking away and, in 2001, found- ing Body Boat Blade International.

“When we first started instructing at Shearwater, we found the BCU and started training in the BCU system,” says Leon. “We like the BCU because its curriculum and assessments help students set and achieve goals. It has an outstanding coaching program that teaches how to most effectively deliver programs and teach current best practice.”

I’d say their teaching style is one of coastal learning. They try everything once. If it works better than what they are currently teaching, they work it in. I felt encouraged to do the same. I asked Leon about this.“Why keep doing the same old thing, if there is a better way?” Why indeed. 

Testing Our Capabilities

Purists scoffed when Welsh kayak designer Nigel Dennis devel- oped a large, keyhole-shaped cockpit for his Romany sea kayak in the early 1990s. Since Ken Taylor took the lines off of a West Greenland kayak in 1959 and formed the archetypical “British- style” sea kayak, small, circular ocean cockpits were a defining feature of all U.K.-built boats. But it didn’t take long for Dennis’ keyhole cockpit to catch on.

His design principle was to come up with something user-friendly. Ocean cockpits may have been traditional, but they were often uncomfortable and less than perfect for quick entries and exits in surf. All the while, the large, oval-shaped cockpits of North American boats didn’t offer enough boat control. The keyhole struck a balance between the two and with advances in neoprene sprayskirts, Washington-based Valley Sea Kayaks sales rep Rob Avery says Dennis’ idea became the norm. With the exception of traditionalists’ requests for the Anas Acuta, the fiberglass replica of Taylor’s Greenland kayak, Avery says he only imports a few ocean cockpit-equipped Valley Pintails and Nordkapps each year. 

One Size Does Not Fit All

In 1994, cab drivers in Munich were given cars with new safety equipment: anti-lock brakes. Surprisingly, their crash rate stayed the same. Nothing was wrong with the new brakes. The cabbies simply drove more aggressively, knowing that they had better brakes.

This phenomenon is called risk homeostasis. It also applies to skiers, skydivers, cyclists and, yes, kayakers.

Risk homeostasis states that people have a target level of risk they’re willing to tolerate. Above that risk level, things are scary; below it, they are boring. Give a cabbie better brakes and he’ll drive faster. Give a kayaker a drysuit and she’ll paddle in bigger seas.

This might not seem like a problem, since that kayaker gets more challenging paddling for the same level of risk. However, paddlers often assume that safety equipment provides more safety—or different kinds of safety— than it does.

The U.S. Coast Guard and American Whitewater Association recently published 2010 statistics on boating accidents. The single greatest cause of sea kayak accidents was, for the eleventh year running, “Unexpected changes in weather conditions.” A New Zealand study of near-misses agreed. Of course, “unexpected” is a loaded word.

Most weather changes can be anticipated through forecasts, weather knowledge and seamanship. But relatively few kayakers have honed these skills. It’s quicker and easier, if more expensive, to buy a drysuit.

The best approach is to make risk more apparent

In Sea Kayaking Safety and Rescue, John Lull describes a four-level safety hierarchy. The first is judgment and decision-making. Second, paddling skills and boat control keep kayakers upright and away from hazards. It’s not until the third level—rescues—when that $800 drysuit actually helps. At level four— outside assistance—we’re reliant on a VHF radio, SPOT messenger or cell phone to call in the cavalry. If we’re really worried about safety, we should focus on the top two levels.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Risk homeostasis applies to skill as well as equipment. Kayakers who feel safe in big waves will simply head for bigger waves. Therefore safety education shouldn’t try to make kayaking less risky, since paddlers will just compensate. Nor should it try to lower the appetite for risk, since there’s evidence of a genetic con- nection. Headed into Okisollo Rapid? You probably have an elongated DRD4 gene.

The best approach is to make risk more apparent. In sea kayaking, unlike whitewater paddling, the dangers are mostly invisible. The weather systems, tides and currents that lead to those “unexpected” weather and sea changes are usually hours or miles away when critical decisions are made. Sea kayaker safety relies more on judgment, risk assessment, weather interpretation and the ability to accurately assess skills, rather than boat handling.

There are adventurers who roam to all the far-flung ends of the earth seeking adventure, and there are those who find a lifetime of the stuff right on their doorsteps.

I confess I’ve spent much of my paddling career looking over the rainbow and beyond the horizon for bluer waters. With a paddle and a pair of trusty red clogs rather than sequined ruby slippers, I’ve hunted for Oz on the East Coast and out West, in the South Pacific and on the North Shore.

Much of my time now is spent absorbing other peoples’ adventure stories—emails, blog posts and photo CDs recounting exotic expeditions in Baja, Australia, Fiji, Chile, Italy, Alaska and the like. Some drift through my consciousness like clouds, while others snag on the yellow brick road of imagination, lingering and becoming tangible, almost personal, through their storytelling. Jon Turk and Erik Boomer’s Ellesmere Island expedition (found in our Spring 2012 issue) is one such example. Don Starkell’s storied career is another.

Dreaming is important – but so is paddling

When the stories accumulate in such numbers that I have to struggle against the compulsion to do something wickedly ad- venturous, some would say (they’re probably right) wickedly foolish, of my own—book a flight, sublet my apartment, quit my job, buy a Feathercraft, and turn my back on land—I know it’s time to get out. Not on a summer-long expedition or a record-setting circumnavigation. Just somewhere I can leave log prints in the sand and let the waves wash away the funk of self-pity.