Monday, June 10, 2013

extreme kayaking

I flipped out of this & got it stuck on a rock in a rapid, lost my paddle & had to walk home. #extreme #summer #swamp #andrea #rapids #swannanoa

saturday morning we went to walmart to buy another kayak.

kevin bought a kayak for himself last weekend, drove up the river a mile or two, and kayaked home. it only took about 30 minutes.

he thought it was easy enough that i would like it too.

i have never been in a kayak. i was wary of the whole thing but after some cajoling and adventure-shaming, off we went with 2 kayaks in the car.

at first it was great. it was a lazy river. not too deep. not too many rocks.

then after less than 10 minutes we came upon rocks and rapids, and i fell out of my kayak.

i was a drowned rat. my kayak was swamped and sinking. the river rocks were slippery. i managed to get to the side, get most of the water out of the kayak, found my paddle and got back in.

i only screamed "I HATE THIS!" one time. kevin paddled over to help me and fell out of his kayak. this was helpful.

back in the slightly swamped kayaks,  we headed downriver again. more rapids ahead, kevin yelled "ROCK" and there was nothing i could do (that i knew of) so i let my kayak hit the rock where it flipped me over and out and got stuck.

there are no pitcures of this, but we can assume it looked like this.


the kayak was wrapped around the rock, stuck. i was waist deep in a rapid trying to get it loose. it was not budging. my paddle floated downriver, gone.

i screamed "I CAN'T FUCKING DO THIS!," waded down to where kevin was waiting for me and said "i broke my kayak."

he went back, dislodged the kayak (not broken after all!), stashed it in the woods, gave me the key to his car and paddled his kayak home.

i scrambled out of the woods completely soaking wet,  i passed an older couple of tourists on the trail and as i scurried by she said "oh...OH!" and i said "i fell in the river." she laughed. i cried.

i soppingly walked a mile back to the car and drove home.


kayak residue 
this is where i left my pants and shoes. 

an hour later a jehova's witness knocked on the door, i'm sure she was thinking the people who live here need some jesus in their life!

3 comments:

kid D said...

The older sister in me (someone I have no control over) is laughing just a bit. This sounds like something I would have done to my sister or best friend because I didn't want to kayak alone. I would have convinced them to come knowing full well that they would hate every minute of it. Their idea of relaxing is truly relaxing, not something that causes them to exert any type of energy!

Anonymous said...

honestly, i thought we would have an awesome time. water levels on the swannanoa river can be, well, tricky.

skippy haha said...

@kid D - hahahah, so funny! i really believe he thought the water was low enough that it would be mellow and i'd love it. but yes, my idea of truly relaxing is a crossword puzzle!

@anonymous - tricky river! it was funny! thanks for the memories! (shakes fist!)