Teamwork

8 kayaks and 2 canoes- almost the whole staff decided to paddle to an island in the middle of the lake for a picnic today. It's a BIG lake, but the water was only slightly ripply and the sun was shining. But when we got out of our bay, the water was choppy like the ocean (Ive been sea kayaking in the ocean, so I feel capable of making this judgement). I was just yelling at everyone to stay closer together in case anyone tipped, and then one of the canoes tipped. Four of the kayaks were already out of sight, but the other canoe was close to the tipped canoe and four of us in kayaks were not far away.

Swamping a canoe aways seems fun, but when it actually happens int he middle of the choppy lake, it's actually really difficult to get the water out of and get back into. The other canoe and the four of us in kayaks all connected together to make a stable raft and then we got the tipped canoe perpendicular with the canoe so we could pop it upon top of our raft and get the water out. Once we did that, we connected the new canoe to our raft and let the two people climb in. It all went very smoothly and I wasn't worried about anyone's safety. Mostly, it was just a good team building activity, because the group worked very well together.

After the rescue, we continued on to the island, which wasn't exactly the sandy beach paradise I'd imagined, more of a thick forest, but it was very nice. Not a bad afternoon actually.