Sisters by Water, Part 1-The Canoe Safari
- Susan Norman
- Jan 22
- 12 min read
There is a well-known phrase used in the writing process called "throwing out your darlings”. This is writing advice to ruthlessly cut beloved but unnecessary chapters, scenes, characters, or beautiful sentences that don't serve the story. This ultimately makes your writing stronger, tighter, and more focused for the reader, and is the most difficult and essential work between an author and their editor(s).
When I first submitted my manuscript for developmental editing, RISK consisted of 145,000 words. My final manuscript was reduced to 87,000 words. I was blessed with two talented developmental editors: Brooke Warner https://brookewarner.com/, and Krissa Lagos https://www.krissalagoseditorial.com, who skillfully led me through this gut-wrenching process.
Since I have no intention of writing another memoir, ‘my darlings’ have been sitting in digital purgatory on my computer. For 2026, I have decided to bring many of them into the light through this blog.
This first piece will be shared in two parts, and like many of my stories in my memoir and this blog, it describes the powerful human alchemy that results from combining adventure, sisterhood, and risk. This piece, Sisters by Water, is dedicated to my whitewater rafting teammates: Julie (Jules) Munger, Kelley Kalafatich, Brooke Winger, and Juliet Starrett.
Wiping the sweat from my brow, I find a spot in the shade to sit down next to Juliet before the safety talk. Our five sky-blue fiberglass canoes look pretty lined up on the sandy beach next to the calm, tea-colored water. Looking past the canoes, I strain my eyes to bring the vegetation on the river's far shore into focus, a quarter mile away. My mind slips into a state of restful calm as I gaze across the horizon of flatwater before me.
After two weeks of competing on Class V whitewater in the upper Zambezi gorge, I was excited about the prospect of a leisurely float. My muscles still felt heavy and sore. But I was also still floating in the euphoric glow of ecstatic release forged through extreme adrenaline toxicity. Unscathed and victorious, we could now bask in the glory of our recent win at the 1993 World Whitewater Rafting Championships.
The safety talk was the last step before launching our five-day canoe safari on the lower Zambezi River as it lazily meandered through the Zambezi National Park. Led by a commercial guide to take care of our every need, we could relax and enjoy the panorama of African wildlife waiting for us around every bend. Having already seen two lions lying right next to the road on our drive to the put-in, and a troupe of vervet monkeys with adorable babies, I was eager to get going. I hoped the safety talk wouldn't take too long.
Besides myself, our group included my teammates Jules, Brooke, Juliet, and Kelley, along with Kelley’s boyfriend Mark, Juliet’s mother Janet, a random couple from Canada, and our guide, Gary. Short, broad-shouldered, muscular, red-haired, and freckled, Gary looked like a cross between a leprechaun and Tarzan. As Gary began the safety talk, I chuckled inwardly at the embarrassing situation he was in. Giving a flatwater river safety talk to some of the most experienced whitewater guides in the world. Later, I would remember this arrogant thought with chagrin.
Gary started with a summary of his credentials. He had grown up in the African bush, running wild with the natives and the wildlife. He’d lived with his divorced white South African dad, a geologist and mining engineer who worked in some of Zimbabwe's most remote locations.
During Gary's impressive career, he’d initially worked as a large-game hunting guide. Once he realized he didn't want to help tourists kill the wildlife he loved, he worked for the governments of Zimbabwe and Zambia as an animal control officer. His job was to deal with rogue animals that were causing problems—such as stalking humans for food or rampaging through villages. Gary was an expert in animal behavior and aversion tactics, able to deter a variety of African beasts from unacceptable behavior. If none of his behavior modification techniques worked, he put the rogue lion, elephant, cape buffalo, etc. down as humanely as possible, using his considerable marksmanship and trapping skills. For the past 10 years, he had also worked as a canoe safari guide.
The safety talk, therefore, was about how NOT to get stomped, gored, or eaten by a wild animal while on our little canoe trip.
I found myself hanging on to Gary’s every word.
After Gary presented a variety of possible death by wild animal scenarios, he said, “And lastly, we will talk about the most dangerous animal we will encounter, the hippo.
The hippo, I thought, really? They seemed so fat and laid back, and the babies were so cute.
Gary continued, “More people are killed by hippos than any other mammal in Africa.”
“How many people are we talking about exactly?”, I asked, hoping to put the actual risk in perspective.
"Approximately 3,000 people a year, and the section of river we will be paddling has the highest density of hippos in the world. There are an estimated 2,500 hippos between here and our takeout.”
I turned to Juliet with a nervous smile and raised my eyebrows. She grimaced back in response.
Good grief, 2,500 hippos. How is that even possible?
"What makes the hippo so dangerous?" asked Janet, Juliet’s mom.
"Male hippos are extremely territorial, and the females are protective of their young. Because they have poor eyesight and sense of smell, they will think our canoes are invading hippos. Our strategy will be to keep far enough away so as not to provoke an attack."
Turning towards the river and pointing downstream, Gary said, "Do you see all those little brown objects in the river?"
I looked where he was pointing, at what I had assumed were shallow rocks standing about six inches or so above the surface.
“Look closer, those are not rocks.”
Squinting at the closest ‘rock’ about 50 yards downstream, I now noticed two little round bumps on the top and two dark spots just above the water's surface—ears and nostrils. And there were dozens of such rocks.
"We will be using several techniques to avoid a hippo attack as we paddle down the river. In my ten years as a guide, I have only been attacked once, and that happened on my first trip."
Well, at least that's a good statistic, low probability of attack… noted.
However, after explaining how we would avoid getting chomped by a hippo, I realized that we would not be doing much relaxing on our float trip.
The last item on the hippo topic was what to do if we did get attacked. Which, as Gary once again assured us, was very unlikely to happen. Because a hippo would focus its attack on a canoe perceived as another hippo invading its turf, everyone in the flotilla was supposed to paddle or swim away from the attacked canoe as fast as they could.
On the only occasion when Gary had been attacked, the hippo had gored his paddle partner's arm and chomped their canoe into little bitty pieces. He and his injured partner had to walk back to civilization. Fortunately, the hippo chomp was not a fatal wound, but the hike out through the massive wildlife sanctuary sounded harrowing.
The final topic in Gary's safety talk was how to use the radio to call for help, in the event he had to sacrifice his own life to keep us safe. He also gave Mark a little primer on using his high-powered rifle and gigantic pistol.
At the end of the talk, Gary, wearing only a pair of running shorts, canvas high tops, and a baseball hat, strapped on his holster with the hand cannon hanging on one side and a radio and machete on the other. He then slung his high-powered rifle over his shoulder and announced cheerily, "Okay, let's go!" I noticed he did not put on a lifejacket. Apparently, on the Lower Zambezi, a lifejacket was not considered an essential river safety tool.
We followed Gary and Janet in the lead canoe, trying to maintain the 50-foot spacing between canoes as instructed. Gary told us that hippo pods hang out at the downstream end of every riffle, small rapids formed by deposited sediments in the river. The rapids were not technically demanding. The current in the low gradient river was slow, the tallest waves were only about 1 foot high, and there were no rocks or downed logs to avoid. Because the Zambezi ranged from ¼ mile to ½ mile in width, the riffles formed between the riverbanks and mid-channel islands. The riffles' shallow, sandy bottoms ended in a steep underwater ledge, marking the start of a deep, flatwater pool. This transition area between the riffles and pools provided the ideal habitat for hippos.
The shallow ledge at the end of the riffle provided a place for the hippos to crawl up to get some sun and look around. From this sunbathing perch, they could easily step or roll off into the deep pool whenever they wanted to cool off or graze on plants growing on the river's bottom.
In the middle of the first riffle, Gary started banging the gunnel of his canoe with his paddle to let the hippos know we were coming. In addition to the dozen or so sun-bathing hippos and floating hippo heads we could see, we immediately saw a half dozen more heads pop up like balloons in the pool below. Gary kept banging the gunnel in between the occasional rudder stroke, steering his canoe to give the widest berth possible to the hippo heads.
After a few hours, it was apparent that Gary was very adept at choosing the best routes to avoid the hippo pods and that his banging technique was effective at allowing us safe passage. Although we had to stay alert to follow his lead, I began to feel less nervous and enjoy the panorama unfolding before us.
As I had imagined, around almost every bend, we encountered wildlife. A small family of elephants, two adults and a baby, gazed down at us as they strolled along a sandy bluff. A lone and majestic cape buffalo looked up from grazing a patch of lush green grass next to the water's edge, his gaze following our flotilla of canoes with a watchful eye until we floated out of view. Around another bend, the heads of five impalas bolted upright. Turning away from shore in a semi-crouch, they held still and watched as we quietly drifted by. The shoreline animals viewed us with as much interest as we viewed them, curiosity overcoming their flight response once they realized we were not a threat.
Continuously crossing the thin line between potential predator and potential prey, we also passed by crocodiles ranging from five to fifteen feet long. Gary’s paddle displayed a dozen visible bite marks. He told us our canoes were too large to provoke an attack, but to make sure to keep our hands and feet out of the water. Whenever a crocodile slipped silently into the water as we passed by, I slid my lower hand up the paddle shaft as high as I could and applied a little more pressure to the blade.
At our first break, Gary showed us how to carefully choose a parking spot. He instructed us to beach our canoes where we could avoid putting our feet in water more than six inches deep, to avoid a crocodile ambush. And to not get out until we had carefully surveyed the shore for any animal lurking in the bush.
Once we were all safely on shore, we then sat down for the wild-game bush walk safety talk. He showed us simple hand signals to communicate and instructed us to only speak in a whisper. We were to walk behind him in single file and step as softly and quietly as possible.
Lastly, he showed us how to camouflage. We smudged our white sunhats and sun shirts with wet mud and sand, dabbed mud smears on our sweaty noses and under the eyes, and stuck a few small, leafy branches in our hatbands. After inspecting us to make sure all the bright and shiny surfaces that an animal would find alarming were erased, Gary announced we were ready.
Following Gary's stealthy lead, we meandered among waterbuck, impalas, cape buffalo, and hyenas. But the best part was the elephants. Watching these gentle giants pass silently through the forest, or sitting quietly next to them as they grazed, was magical. It was not that these animals were unaware of our presence, but because Gary knew the proper distance to maintain and behavior to exhibit, no one got riled. If an animal showed signs of discomfort, Gary led us away quickly and quietly.
My respect for Gary's prowess in safely leading us to mingle closely with Africa's wildest animals continued to grow throughout the day.
Camping on the Zambezi River was unlike any of my previous outdoor wilderness experiences. Because of the heat, most of us slept under the open sky, with merely a pup tent constructed of mosquito netting between us and the great wilds of Africa. Only the Canadians chose to sleep inside their stifling nylon tent, perhaps feeling the fabric barrier might offer some additional protection.
A symphony began soon after sunset. Night was when many African animals were on the move. Listening to the thrilling orchestra of exotic birds, lions, leopards, hyenas, and monkeys, I felt I would never sleep. It was always a surprise when I woke up in the middle of the night, wondering when I had fallen asleep and what might have woken me. I would lie awake for several minutes with my heart thumping, straining to hear sounds of nocturnal stalking.
Gary purposely selected campsites on large islands in the middle of the river to avoid harassment from pesky rodents and monkeys that might try to get into our food and gear. Camping on the islands also meant we were less likely to be disturbed by elephants and other wildlife, including canines and felines.
However, the islands didn’t separate us from everybody. That first morning, I was alarmed to see fresh hippo and crocodile tracks on the sand within 15 feet of my mosquito net. How did I not hear them? Gary assured me the hippos were only interested in grazing, and although the crocodiles were hunting, they would only go after something that was moving. After that first night, I reduced the radius for my nightly piddle to two feet from my pup-tent to ensure I did not stumble into anyone during their ramblings.
Although crocodiles apparently posed no danger while sleeping in our tents, Gary warned that they were our most significant threat while standing next to the river. Crocodiles lurked underwater near the riverbanks, specifically to snare animals coming to the water. When conducting the many camp chores that required water from the river, getting dishwater, taking a sponge bath, or brushing our teeth, we went to the spots where Gary had determined the murky river was less than a foot deep. I decided to keep my exposure to the river’s edge to a minimum. My hair could wait until the end of the trip to be washed.
On our second night, I decided to look for a spot to pitch my little skeeter net further from the group because of a couple of loud snorers. While looking for tracks on the ground to avoid any that might indicate a favorite path for hippos and crocs, I saw something that made me stop short.
That looks just like my cat’s footprint. Only much larger.
Scampering over to Gary, I said, “Hey, could you come look at an animal track I found. I think it might be a kitty cat.”
Two lines between his brows deepened with concern as he picked up his rifle.
“Let’s go see."
Gary crouched over the paw print and scratched at it with his finger.
“Yep, this is a lion, and the track isn’t more than 24 hours old. So, he might still be on the island.”
Alarmed, I said, "I thought the reason we were camping on islands is because lions wouldn't be here. Don't cats hate the water?"
"Well, a lion is not the same as a house cat. It isn't common, but they do sometimes swim out to the islands. Especially if he was running from a younger male."
“How do you know it’s a male?”
"From the size and the fact that he is alone. He may be an older lion that is no longer part of a pride. I think it would be a good idea if everyone pitched their tents close together next to the fire."
I would wear earplugs.
The next morning, Jules told me Gary had stayed up all night, locked and loaded. She had hung out with him next to the campfire for a while after the rest of us went to bed. He told her that he was nervous because the island was too small to share with a lion. Unlike crocs and hippos, lions sometimes disturbed people in their sleep.
Could I resist screaming if I woke up to a lion breathing in my face? Probably not.
Usually, on a river trip, camp is where you can finally relax after facing river descent perils during the day. But I realized Africa required a higher level of vigilance and situational awareness than anywhere else I had been. And now our guide has lost a full night's sleep, potentially compromising his mental and physical faculties.
I was feeling nervous about our exposure again. I knew from my own experiences as a raft guide how trusting clients could be in their guides' ability to keep them safe, even in risky circumstances. But I also knew there was a limit to how much guides could help their clients when the shit hit the fan. When disaster struck, the person most responsible for any individual's safety was ultimately themselves.
(to be continued)
Great read, thank you Sue!
Great story! The discriptions put me in the middle of the adventure.