To read part eight of day seven, click here.

No matter how fast I tried to swim, I wasn’t catching up. We were almost past our crewmates who had already made it through the rapids when I finally caught up to my canoe. I grabbed my paddle from where it was floating next to the canoe, glad to have it back in my grasp.

I grabbed the painter and started swimming for the shore. We were already past our crew – now our goal was to get to shore before we got caught in the next rapids. It was coming up quickly, and there was a pretty good chance that Bobby or I would get hurt if we had to swim through the next rapids.

We had to turn the canoe and start swimming against the river. We were running out of time – the next rapids was so close, I could hear the water crashing against the rocks. I think I told Bobby to swim faster, pushing myself to the limit so I wouldn’t get sucked into those rapids. I thought that going through rapids in a canoe was bad – I couldn’t imagine having to float through it.

My fear of the water was a good thing right then – it’s the only reason I was able to keep swimming against the current to get to shore. It was really hard to keep going, but I’d listen and the sound of the water crashing against the rocks would motivate me to keep going. 🙂

After what seemed like forever, Bobby and I made it to shore. I was exhausted, but I still had to keep moving. We flipped the canoe back and forth, emptying all of the water out of it. When we were done we climbed back in, grabbed the gunwales of the canoe next to us.

“That was the first time I’ve ever seen you grab your gunwales, Brett. Normally you keep paddling, which is probably the reason you don’t flip. But this time you grabbed your gunwales right before you flipped.”

Glenn couldn’t be right. I didn’t remember grabbing my gunwales – I had never done it before.

“I seriously grabbed my gunwales?”

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.*