Raft

Two Southern California soldiers attached to the Fort Lewis army base near Tacoma, Wash., were killed in separate accidents, military authorities said. Patrick Lynch, 21, of Anaheim was presumed drowned after a handmade log raft he was riding came apart in the Nisqually River. Lynch and two other soldiers, who made it to shore safely, were participating in escape-and-evasion exercises, a Fort Lewis spokesman said. Lynch's body was not found.

Thank you for the Zambezi article by Christian Kallen Jan. 4. The graphic article and beautiful photography brought back to me my adventure on the Zambezi River last September. Nineteen of us went 2 1/2 months through Africa. We all decided to take the week down the Zambezi with Sobek Expeditions. Mike Speakes was our head guide. The raft I was in was the only one that flipped, on Rapid 18. I don't swim! But we were each given the finest life jacket to wear. No problem. LOIS PELLERIN Santa Monica

The eight survivors of the sunken Pride of Baltimore returned home Wednesday with a tale of painful days and hellish nights aboard a life raft after the loss of four fellow crew members in a storm-tossed sea. Some of the eight limped, but all smiled as they were greeted at the airport by hundreds of well-wishers, including Gov. Harry Hughes and Mayor William Donald Schaefer. Barefoot Cook The ship's cook, James Chesney, 25, of Newmarket, N.H.

Re: Supplying Compassion, Aug. 21 (cover story). In the article about AIDS patients and the elderly living side by side in a Palms nursing home, we discover that none of the regular geriatric staffers wanted to help the AIDS-afflicted. Administrator Michael Togan traced this to an employee in charge of staff development who had a phobia about AIDS, and he fired her. Apparently, the irony of this situation is lost on many readers and on writer Linda Feldman. In our New Age society, populated by Boomer managers, the Americans With Disabilities Act protects just about every employee from discrimination--from those with acute alcohol problems to those who see "little green people everywhere" or any similar phobia.

Fons Oerlemans has crossed the Atlantic on a raft, in a boiler and in a truck. This summer he plans to make the voyage in a green beer bottle. The 50-year-old Belgian engineer has spent the last three years designing and building a bottle-shaped hydrofoil 36 feet long. It has a cruising speed of 4O knots. He calls the craft "Spirit of Heineken." In June, Oerlemans plans to sail his steel bottle the 3,000 miles from New York to England in a bid to set two world records--the first Atlantic crossing and the longest distance traveled by hydrofoil.

"Big River" is a biiiiig show. It sprawls. It meanders. It winds. Just like the Mississippi. You'd think that would be just exactly right for a show based on Mark Twain's witty and wise "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." It's not. Its emphasis, or that of this production, is misplaced. The national company of "Big River" sailed into Costa Mesa's Segerstrom Hall Tuesday like Jim and Huck's raft: with smooth, unruffled, unsinkable predictability.

In a world where shopping online and booking a hotel or a rental car usually demands plastic, few people can survive without a credit card. But vast changes in credit regulation coupled with a souring economy turned 2009 into the most turbulent credit year in decades, with a record number of rate hikes, consumer cancellations and changes in fees, terms and credit limits. And experts say there's more in store for 2010. "2010 is going to be the year of accountability," said Adam Levin, chairman and co-founder of Credit.

SeaWorld's Aquatica will introduce an innovative hybrid concept to San Diego on June 1 that combines a marine park with a water park, allowing visitors to interact with animals like dolphins, stingrays and flamingos as they zip down water slides. > Photos: SeaWorld San Diego's Aquatica water park SeaWorld San Diego purchased Knott's Soak City in Chula Vista from the parent company of Knott's Berry Farm for $15 million and plans an extensive renovation of the separate-admission water park about 20 miles south of the marine park.

PORTSMOUTH, Va. - The ship's engineer was seasick and spitting up his medication. A deckhand had been tossed past the mainmast, breaking three ribs. The captain had been slammed against a cabin table, wrenching his back. He could barely walk. Capt. Robin Walbridge, sailing the tall ship Bounty from Connecticut to Florida, was trying to outflank Hurricane Sandy, which was roaring toward New York. But instead of slipping around the storm, the ship had crossed directly into Sandy's path.

If it's summertime in Huntington Beach, you can be sure things are going to get dirty. This, of course, has nothing to do with local politics, but rather with the annual opening of Adventure Playground, a 1.5-acre corner of Huntington Central Park best known for its mud slide and Huck Finn-style rafting pond. "Kids are always being told to stay clean and keep out of anything dirty," says Kim White, 23, director of the playground. "This is the only time they're allowed to be dirty."