November 6, 2018 (continued)
I was able to grab my Clarks flip flops (my favorites ones) in the water before they began to float away and wrangle them over my wrists so I wouldn’t lose them while in the water. With them around my wrists and my phone around my neck, I reached up and felt the brim of my burnt orange colored hat I was wearing to find that my sunglasses had somehow remained in place. I was lucky that I still had everything that I came with that day, minus my dry clothing that was now soaked.
Tori on the other hand was not so lucky – she was out a phone and her hearing aids were slowly dying. But, before that happened she pulled out her GoPro and began filming. I’m not sure why because she was pretty upset. Anyway, I began laughing and she couldn’t understand why. Honestly, I wasn’t sure either but I told her, “What else is there to do?!” We had both ended up in the river and there wasn’t much we could do about it. Well, except look for a way to empty our kayaks of water and get back into them. We laughed, me more so than her… well, because, let’s face it, I wasn’t the one who lost my phone or had my hearing aids damaged. We both laughed though and agreed that we wouldn’t be doing yoga later in the day! We also told each other that one day that we would look back and laugh about our experiences of that day.
The thing is though, the banks of the river never provided a spot for us to dump our water and get back in our kayaks for the remainder of our trip. The banks were too high and the river was too swift to attempt to even hold on to a large tree and stand on it to figure something out. So, Tori and I floated down the river; some parts of the river were calmer than others. At one point we noticed that there was a mile marker on the side of the river that said .5 miles. We could only assume that the kayaking place put it there to let us know how far we had already gone and how much further we had to go.
It wasn’t long before Tori’s hearing aids went out and the only way for her to hear much was for me to shout and her to lip read. She’s deaf without her hearing aids; I never knew how much so though until that day. I began praying for her hearing aids to be restored.
Tori and I are good friends, but we haven’t spoken much about our faith in the 10 years that we’ve known each other. I know that she grew up in a Catholic family but not much else. From what I can tell, she believes in God, but I’m pretty sure she and I have a different view on things. I’ve opened up about my faith in the past few months but not like I should. Anyway, she still had her hearing aids on while we were going down the river and I prayed that they would begin working or at least begin working after we got out of the water and they had a chance to dry out.
Let me just say that when you’re “floating” down the river, and I don’t mean in a relaxing way at this point, that your sense of distance traveled can feel different than what is actually the case.
Allow me to paint a picture for you of what the rest of our trip was like. For about another half a mile Tori and I dodged logs in the river while using our kayaks as a tool to accept the blunt force of the log being slammed into us in the fast-moving water so that our bodies wouldn’t have to directly experience the impact. We looked for logs in the water that we could see and had to be on the lookout as much as possible for branches in the water that we couldn’t see. Not only that, but there were logs across the river and small dams that beavers had made where we had to traverse one side of the river in order to pass it on the other side of the river. I’m pretty sure this is reminding me of a video game I once saw. Not to mention that my bare feet were in the water and I was trying not to think about what might touch my feet! I didn’t want to touch any fish, snakes, etc. Tori had her tennis shoes on; and, in one sense it helped her feet to stay safe, but in another way it made her feet heavier in the water. Thank goodness for our life jackets (no helmets though). Really though, I didn’t have much time to be scared because I was too busy trying to look out for my friend, dodge logs, look for a place to possibly dump our kayaks out, etc.
Well, at one point I got ahead of Tori by about 25 yards. That distance slowly increased. We began to approach what I can only assume was either a beaver dam or a tree that had fallen into the river that was acting like a dam. There was so much debris and other logs that had accumulated there. I thought that just maybe if I could grab ahold of it and climb on top that I could catch a break and possibly get back into my kayak. Go ahead kayakers, roll your eyes again… I just did when remembering this dumb idea.
I tried to hold on but what ended up happening was that my kayak was sucked under the water and I began to be sucked under the log as well. It was so scary! Tori was about 50 to 75 yards behind me at that point and I remember thinking to myself that I was going to die in the river and that I was going to die alone. I’m not exaggerating. Well, I let go of my kayak and thankfully my lifejacket began to do what it was designed to do and lifted the top of my shoulders above the water again.
Once again, I made my way to my kayak and my paddle. This time though, I couldn’t see Tori behind me. The dam was too high for me to see her. I could hear her though and I shouted to let her know that I was okay. I later looked back and saw her standing on top of the dam that I had hoped to stand on. I found out after our “adventure” down the river though that her experience was even more harrowing than mine.
I don’t remember if she had the same thought process as me when it came to the dam or not; but, she later told me that her kayak actually got stuck under the dam (it’s still there from last we knew) and that she began to be sucked under along with it. She thought she was going to die that day as well. On top of that, her pace maker went off due to this experience.
I found myself in the river alone, all alone. Before Tori and I were separated in the river she handed me her GoPro; so, I pulled it out and began filming and recapping our events. I didn’t film long but I figured it was better than nothing. I had nothing else to do and thought it would be good to look back on. I went from filming to praying for our safety and softly singing “Jesus Loves Me” to sooth my highly alert mind after I realized that there might be leeches in the water. Bare feet, neck, arms, and the lower parts of my legs from my capri leggings…arrggh! Calgon take me away! LOL – I felt like that!
Around that same point, I saw the next mile marker that said 1-mile. I couldn’t focus on my fears though because I had to continue to be on the lookout to fight logs, debris, branches, etc. in the swift current and hope for no fish or snakes to touch me. At one point I saw a spider on a tree limb when I was trying to hold on to it to wait for Tori to catch up to me in the river. I quickly decided to swim the other way.
More to come next time…
See you soon,
Penelope G.