To read part sixteen of day six, click here.

I don’t remember how we got the canoes over to where we had started our swim assessment. I just remember getting into my canoe and being so close to crying that I was blinking rapidly, hoping that no one would look at my face. I had made it the whole day without flipping, and I was going to have to flip now.

On purpose.

I was really freaking out. I had spent the whole day worried that I was going to flip, and now I knew that I was going to have to. I don’t know why flipping scared me so much.

It could have been the fear of the water that was helping with that, but I really don’t know. I just know that I was so scared to flip, that I was about to start bawling in front of my entire crew. And I don’t cry in front of my friends. I cry in front of my family all the time, (I’m blaming hormones), but never in front of my friends.

As I was staring out at the river, I saw one of the instructors taking one of my crewmates across the river.

Some of my crewmates had noticed too.

“Why is _____ going across the river? Does anyone know?”

No one knew. We asked Patrick.

“______ is going across the river because he/she is not participating in our flip and swim. Because of that, he/she will not be canoeing with us tomorrow.”

We were all horrified. One of our crewmates wasn’t going to be with us the next day? We hadn’t really been separated before, except for when we were getting Ben down the mountain. The fact that our crewmate was going to be gone for a whole day really bothered me.

“Patrick, why isn’t ______ doing the flip and swim?”

“He/she said that he/she had already flipped enough today, and he/she wasn’t going to do it again. Unfortunately, we can not let anyone go on to the second day of canoeing unless they participate.”

“Oh.”

I hadn’t known that was an option. I briefly thought about asking to join my crewmate, but was interrupted by Bruce.

“You’re going to be fine out there, Brett. Don’t worry about it.”

“But Bruce, I don’t even know what to do? How am I supposed to get the canoe to flip on purpose? How am I supposed to do this?”

“Listen – you just get us out where we need to be. I’ll take care of flipping us. Don’t worry about that part. You just paddle and get us to the current. “

I didn’t even try to hide the relief in my voice.

“Thanks, Bruce.”

He patted me on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t going to say that. Not after he had tried to cheer me up. And I wasn’t worrying about the forcing the canoe to flip part – I knew that Bruce would take care of that. He had said he would, and I knew that he would do it.

I don’t remember whether we were the first canoe to go, or if we were the second or third. I just remember that we were one of the first canoes.

What I do remember was how I felt when Bruce told me to start paddling. I was scared out of my wits, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Click here to read the next part of Day Six.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

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