To read part seven of day seven, click here.

As we were floating near the beginning of the next rapids, Glenn made an announcement that made my heart rate go way up.

“This is the biggest rapids of the day, everyone. After this we have three more rapids, and then we are done.”

He told us what we would have to do to get through this rapids, and I laughed. He made it sound like it was so simple! But looking at the rapids in front of us, I knew it wouldn’t be simple.

“Line up, duckling style! Give me 15 seconds between each canoe.”

Bobby and I were probably the third or fourth canoe in line. We watched as the first canoe made it through, but the next one flipped. After what seemed like ten minutes, but was really only fifteen seconds, Bobby told me to start paddling.

“Brett, wouldn’t it be really funny if we flipped here?”

“No, it would NOT be funny, Bobby. I would NOT be happy. Let’s just get through this without flipping, ok?”

“I think it would be really funny. I might even flip us on purpose! How awesome would that be?”

“Oh, ha ha ha. It would be really funny. And when we were done I would kill you, so you might not want to do it. And I wouldn’t let you share my mat again. And I wouldn’t let you have some of my water. You’d better not flip us on purpose, ok? Let’s just do this the way we have done the rest of the rapids, and we’ll be fine. “

I started paddling, following the trail that the canoe before us had taken. We were doing pretty well, but before I could realize what was happening everything went wrong. We were going sideways, the water pushing against us making the canoe rock. I tried to rock my hips with the canoe like we had been told to, but it wasn’t helping. My paddling wasn’t getting us anywhere either, and the correctional stroke I did just made it worse.

I realized that we were going to flip. I kept paddling, but it wasn’t doing anything. As the canoe started to flip, I took a deep breath, pulling my knees out of the straps. We went under and I panicked. My feet found the bottom and I pushed off, desperate to get to the surface. I found myself thinking of the last time I had flipped, and how I had gotten trapped under the canoe. I was just thinking over what I had to do to get out from under the canoe when my head was out of the water, and I could breath.

I was so glad for the air. I took a couple of deep breaths, unaware that my canoe, paddle, and Bobby were all floating down stream, away from me. I was facing upstream, and I realized that was the wrong way when a wall of white water came and hit me in the face, filling my open mouth with foul water.

That was some of the nastiest tasting water I’ve ever had in my mouth. I spit it out, making a face at the taste. I turned around so it wouldn’t happen again, and saw Bobby, the canoe and my paddle over ten feet away. I started swimming over to them, but it looked like they were getting farther and farther away.

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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.*