I love kayaking. The wind in your hair. The way your whole body works to turn and lean and move. The feeling in your stomach in the rapids. Its just the most amazing adventure. And as Pocahontas said “You can’t step in the same river twice, the water is always changing, always flowing” (you just sang that in your head. You know you did) It’s so true though. Every day it’s a new river, a new adventure. Some days the river happily flows along, some days it’s angry and raging. The river is alive and it speaks if you listen. So of course I wanted to share this passion with my boyfriend.
So we loaded 2 kayaks on my jeep and took off to a local lake, Lake Livingston. The plan was simple, we would paddle from the marina to Pine Island and back. We estimated this to be about a 4 mile round trip at the most. And while he was inexperienced I had been paddling a good while and didn’t see any issue. (Do you get the feeling something goes wrong? It does) We arrived at the marina, unloaded the kayaks, slathered on 100spf sun block, threw my phone in a water proof bag and clipped it on my seat. We were ready. We carry the kayaks down to the boat ramp. A couple who were coming off the lake warned us “its really choppy today. You may not want to try it.” Of course we were going to try it. Duh! They urged us to be careful and left shaking their heads. We launch off the ramp and have a quick lesson in turning and balancing. He’s a fast learner. I point us towards the island and we start paddling hard. The lake is choppy is understatement. It is ROUGH. The front of the kayak rides up and slams back down. It rattled my brain. We get about half way to the island when Doug loses he drain plug. His kayak is taking on water faster than we can pump it out. As it fills it dumps him out and is upside down. It’s a kayak. It happens. We just roll it over and carry on right? No. We roll it over and it sinks. It is now floating just below the surface of the lake. Plan B. Ill tow the kayak to the island. We tie them together and I start paddling. A wave hits and the rope breaks. This is about the time this has stopped being funny and is now annoying. Doug decides to swim with the kayak to the island. So he does. But it was a very difficult job and it took a very long time. He was exhausted.
Finally we arrived on the island, even the angels celebrated. They sang the hallelujah song, there were fireworks, it was crazy. We drag both kayaks onto the island to find the whole island was crawling with fire ants. For my Yankee friends who are not familiar with fire ants let me enlighten you. They are red ants and they sting and it feels like fire. And it makes you consider setting yourself on fire. That’s how they got their name. They were created when a little ant mated with the devil. I am highly allergic to these things. I swell and get a rash on my face, my throat itches and I cough. Even if I get just one ant bite the whole reaction happens. It’s just great. So to avoid a real emergency on Pine Island I stand in ankle deep water just off the island. Doug stands up his boat and empties the water. He sits in ankle deep water with me just relaxing and recuperating from dragging that boat in.
It is now time to go back. We find trash on the island, well Doug found it. I was still standing in the water avoiding death. We jammed the trash into the drain hole in hopes of making it back to the marina. The lake had not smoothed out even a tiny bit and honestly I was worried. But off we go. We got to almost the exact spot. Half way… No man’s land... And sure enough the trash doesn’t hold. The kayak fills up. Doug is back in the water. The kayak is floating below the surface and we are not amused. Enough is enough, I call dad. That’s what dad is for. (Yes, I am Daddy’s girl) Plus my dad knows a guy and he knows a guy and that’s how stuff gets done.
“Hey dad, so um we sunk Doug’s kayak. Doug is in the water. He has a life jacket on so he’s ok but he’s too tired to swim back. Do you have a friend on the lake that could help us?” What dad says no? Of course he sent help. He hung up and called a friend. While we wait we let the water push us back to the island. We were back in shallow water near the island when I see boats coming towards us. Boats with lights, and sirens, and uniforms. What had dad done? I knew they were coming to save us. As the boats got closer I could read the writing, United States Coast Guard, Trinity River Authority, San Jacinto County S.O. OH. MY. GOD. Say it isn’t so.
Doug looks at me. “Who did you call?”
“Just my dad… He clearly found help.”
The boats pull up. They help us in and give is a visual once over. We are asked if we need an ambulance. The force of our in unison “NO” caught them off guard. The kayaks were pulled into a fire boat. I’m dying on the inside. No way am I about to tell these people my boyfriend and I are both paramedics just one county over. The rescuers tell me something about “Next time we are in trouble to just call 911 not my dad.” I agree with my mouth but I was thinking there was not a chance of a snowball in a Texas summer that I would be calling 911. We weren’t having an emergency. We were stranded. This was the same thing as a flat tire. We needed to not be stranded. We didn’t have an emergency.
We arrive back at the marina and Doug and the guys start unloading the kayaks. I am given paperwork to fill out. The paperwork asked our names and occupations. I hesitate, I finally scribble the names George Brown and Sarah Black. Occupations-Walmart. I hand the papers back and all but run to my car. We load the kayak and jump in the Jeep. We sat there in silence for a while. He spoke first, “Lets agree to never kayak in Montgomery County”
“Deal” I replied.
I start the car towards home. We call dad to see how this happened. He had just called a friend. The friend just so happened to be a Liberty County Game Warden. He called his friend, the San Jacinto County Game Warden. He called his friends at the Sheriff Department and they treated it as a 911 call. “Two boaters in trouble in the water between Pine Island and Browders Marina.” All units respond. And they did.
I learned a few hours later I had one of the worst sunburns of my life. (Too bad I didn’t know about carrot seed oil
) And a few days later I got a delivery of balloons from the involved Game Wardens telling me how happy they were that we were okay. The balloons were weighted down with kayak plugs. Well played guys, well played.
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