Sunday, June 26, 2022

Swim Across the Sound: An Eventful Day

Friends, My buddy Chris is visiting from Washington State, having just retired from the Army. Alas for poor Chris, I immediately dragooned him into following me for an open water swim yesterday in one of our kayaks. I also made the poor bastard bring our waterproof camera to take pictures of the ordeal. Keyword: waterproof.


Getting ready to hit the water

Swimming!

We got about 800 yards into the swim, and everything was going peachy. Boats were waving, the sun was shining, and Chris even had tunes blasting on my waterproof speaker. Again, note that keyword. A wave came by, and I pushed through it, then looked back to see where Chris had gotten to with the kayak and my Gatorade. Only, I didn't see Chris. I only saw the kayak -- upside down. I thought, "That's not good." Swam back, and lo and behold, there is Chris swimming right next to me. Luckily he'd worn a life jacket. It wasn't a hard sell or anything making him wear the life jacket, but in that moment, he looked pretty damned glad to have it. We were a solid half-mile out from shore, and the kayak was filled with maybe two feet of water. Bilge pumps are a thing for kayaks. Who knew?


I thought we were about to have a really long morning, but a boat happened by at just the right moment, we got the kayak righted and -- mostly -- emptied of water, and we drove on with our mission. Happily, we didn't lose any equipment, but well, my new phone should be here tomorrow. What can you do? Finished up with just over 5K in the water under gorgeous blue skies, and save for that one rather eventful moment, it was a pretty nice day out there. So. This is where we are. And let me just say that I like swimming plenty, but NO ONE would swim 3.1 miles just for the Hell of it. We did all of this to beat cancer. If you can help us and our team with that, we will be very grateful.
Thanks again. Have a good rest of your weekend.

--Dan

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