We had been watching the raft in front of us closely, since it had looked a little shaky going through the last two sections of whitewater.

It was clear that the raft guide had been having a tough time with her crew. As we were about to take on the Class IV rapid, the most challenging of the trip, her raft dumped two people into the whitewater.

There are a myriad of ways to die while whitewater rafting, most of which you can avoid as long as you stay in the boat. If you do happen to separate yourself from the rubber, you have to avoid bashing your head on a rock, getting swept under the current and drowning, getting trapped under the raft and drowning, trying to stand up and getting your foot trapped under a rock -- and drowning.

You get the idea. Stay in the boat and you're cool.

Our guide yelled for us to paddle all back. We missed going down the rapids ourselves (and possibly smashing into one of the swimmers) by a few inches and made it to the side of the river. Our guide leapt out and ran down the shore, looking to throw a rope to the swimmers. Within seconds, he was out of sight. We were left standing on the shore, cold and in the rain, wondering what was happening.

"Look," said a voice behind me.

It was my friend Dave, urinating in his wet suit. "Mine's leaking," he said laughing.

"Nice, Dave. Very nice."

We knew that the people who had gone into the water were going to be fine. We were rafting at the U.S. National Whitewater Center (redundant, I know), about 20 minutes from downtown Charlotte. It's a man-made river that happens to be the largest recirculating river in the world.

Each raft had an experienced guide, and there were other guides standing on the sides taking pictures. Each had a rescue rope handy. The two who fell out made it back into their boat without incident.

It still could have been bad. Dave was a bit cavalier with his urine joke, though I suspect he had been waiting for the most inappropriate time to use it.

This was a few weeks ago and was the big adventure of one of my buddy's bachelor party weekends. I know whitewater rafting is not what bachelor parties are supposed to be all about, but my friend had his heart set on it and the rest of my group vetoed my suggestion to hire a stripper for the raft.

I, for one, didn't even know there were places to go whitewater rafting outside the mountains. The USNWC is well within driving distance from Moore County (probably two and a half hours). It's got a climbing wall, a ropes course, a mountain biking and hiking trail and several other outdoorsy amenities.

I had never been whitewater rafting before, but it seemed fairly self-explanatory: Paddle like hell and try not to fall off.

The USNWC makes it pretty easy on you. For about 50 bucks, you get to take a few spins around. The employees give you a wetsuit-like bib (it makes you look like Tweedledum, but it'll keep you warm), a rain slick and a pair of booties (should you be so inclined).

Turns out, I never felt uncomfortable or in any danger. It was like a roller coaster ride, thrilling but safe. There's a lot less paddling than I expected (the river does most of the work, you know).

Paddling the right way means leaning forward and then pulling back so your torso can do most of the work. It's a killer ab workout.

The whole thing was over way before I was ready for it to be, but it was great fun and fairly cheap. I just feel bad for the next guy who had to wear Dave's suit.

Matthew Moriarty is a former staff writer who now lives in Durham. Contact him at matt.moriarty@gmail.com.