A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for.

The season of "liquid water" is started.

Many people can't wait anymore.

It's still too cold to have a nice, several day long rafting, but it's good to dust off our boats.

Since there is a lot of water in the river (melted snow enrich them) the stream is very fast!

Some river levels have risen by a few meters.

Sometimes it's even dangerous to use a boat in it.

But people like risk.

That's why a local sport club held a competition for rafters.

They found a place on the riverbank in the town with comfortable places for viewing.

They placed some markers in the river:

There are two types of gates:

- The red sticks mean that you should pass the gate going upstream

- The green sticks mean that you should pass the gate going downstream.

There were a few categories, for ages, for teams from 2 sportsmen and for teams from 4 sportsmen.

A lot of team participated, more than sixty.

We can't swim during our long winter, so people are eager to start a season.

It's a really hard job to handle a boat on spring river, and with the gates it's becoming to be "only for professionals".

We (my older son and I) are planing on rafting in May, so we can't miss this event.

In May rivers are still fast and full of water, but it's not so cold at night,it will be slightly above  zero  Celsius already.

We found the old ruined bridge near to that place, and we had an excellent view on this action.

The finish was just above this bridge, and it was the most hard place in this river way

My son was impressed by the action, now we are talking about the rivers/boats/rafting all the time.

And there is an educational part of it: He heard how captain of team tells orders to members, and asking me why?

We discussed a lot, and I bet he now understand the importance of team work and sub-ordinance in such deals.

Now we are playing in captain and sailor all the time, and strike me dead if I am naughty. He explains me the rules and their importance again and again.