i hurt all over today, but that’s to be expected. after what happened yesterday, i can honestly say: fuck bruises and bug bites, i have my life and my dad has his.
yesterday was an adventure. me and zib went kayaking. meaning individual kayaks, since i was feeling brave. and the 16 mile, 6 hour trail, because i was feeling really brave.
i was really getting used to it. i felt so comfortable rowing that i imagined doing this regularly. once i was old enough, i’d go and kayak on my own. it would be routine.
now, i’m not so sure about that. yesterday really scared the shit out of me.
i hit a rock headfirst with my kayak. my dad joked “you picked the biggest one” and i just grinned and was super excited when i rode out its waves. but it turned my kayak sideways and i didn’t see the second rock.
inevitably, my kayak flipped. zib freaked out and got out of his kayak in a vain effort to play rescue mission. bad idea.
the first thing i felt was the water on my feet. my shoes slipped off and i couldnt see what happened to the bag i had aboard. i was submerged in the water not long, but it kicked off my fear totally. i realized the only way to get over this was to be assertive. take action.
the currents were moving very strongly forward, and zib told me to get to his kayak. he was in front of me and he started trying to push it backwards, against the current. i was literally trying to run along the rocks (the water had gotten shallower) to get to his kayak. his was filled with water and when he tried to get me in it, it wasnt such a great idea.
i was kept afloat by my life jacket. but his was unbuckled. its life qualities were not tapped in.
a woman noticed our struggle, somehow, (might have been my calls for help. “help help help help help!” me, yesterday.) and asked if we needed help. yeah, we did. i dont know why i let dad answer though. he was having a really hard time in the water.
my big concern was to get him on solid ground. i was fine with my floaty status but he was barely keeping his head above the water. he was getting weak and his attempts to get the kayak i was in to the coastal edge of the river failed. especially since the water was getting really deep for him.
the woman didnt know what to do herself, and got a father and in his son in a canoe to help. the dad was prolly like 35 or so and the kid was somewhere around 11. they were nice. the man’s name was larry. zib just yelled out commands for him and he kind of followed them. eventually he moved the canoe so that my kayak, which he had retrieved and hooked to the back of his canoe, was able to be grabbed on by dad.
he basically grabbed onto it for life. the attempts to swim really took a lot out of him and he seemed barely conscious.
he held onto the kayak and i held onto the back of it. he pulled it and in turn pulled me along to the shallowe edge of the river and its coast.
it wasnt really a coast. it was the edge. it was lined intensely with trees and similar foliage, and as a result there were tons of bugs. mosquitoes, freaky deeky 8-leggers, buzzy creepies, the whole enchilada. i have at least 3 bites on my right wrist, possibly four. there’s just a huge swell in the center where only one of the bites, one where my hand and my arm meet, is visible. it itches like a bitches.
there are more injuries though. i keep finding bruises and i am inexplicably sore all over, mainly in my back, shoulders, legs. i have a monstrously sized bite on my left foot, just below the ankle. i have no idea what leaves a bite that big but shit is MASSIVE. i’ve got bruises on my knees, along my legs, on my feet, on my fingers, i’m feeling one on my elbow…it hurts.. i hurt.
but zib suffered some big things too. he liked broke his foot or something. i was sure it was from his heroic efforts but i think it’s from when he was hanging onto the kayak before larry came to get us. i felt his foot next to mine holding onto it and i supported it with my own foot. maybe it hurt him and that’s why the “grip” was so weak..
lost were the following items:
- sunglasses, his, that he was lending me
- my right shoe
- his right shoe
- food stuffs, including ponzki and karutky cookies
gained was a new ‘lease on life’ and possibly a cool story.
