Day 2: When Things Don’t Go as Planned

   This morning my co-guides and I woke up early with one of our early rising campers and took our time to make tea and breakfast. While we were making our breakfast burritos Riley and Zara brought us their leftover sausage from breakfast burritos and their group headed out. While we ate we watched as their group struggled in the wind.
   After we finished breakfast and packed up we headed out in the same direction the previous group

Photo by Averi

before us had. The wind was not in our favor and we did not make it very far. After struggling with the wind for almost an hour we left it up to the campers if they wanted to continue on forward or if they wanted to turn around and just have a exploring/easy trip. They picked not battling the wind. So we turned around. With the wind behind us now, we pulled out the tarp and made a sail. We sailed past our campsite and into the biggest crossing of water in the south. The wind died down so we packed up the tarp again and returned to paddling.
   Halfway through the crossing, the wind picked up again and that’s when plans went south. Around 1:00 p.m. our all camper canoe was struggling to paddle in the waves and water was coming over the sides. Not being able to get to land to empty it, or to get to a safe location to hand off the sponge they fought hard to control the boat. Suddenly, I heard them all scream as I watched the canoe tip over and swamp in the middle of Little Traverse. Josie’s canoe, Cecilia’s canoe and mine paddled over to help. Since I had no duff in my canoe I paddled around and collected gear as Josie and Cecilia performed a T-rescue. At some point durning the T-rescue the waves took two of our campers far away from the rest of the group and I tried to paddle to them to help them out, but I was struggling to fight the waves.

Photo by Averi

 I heard them choking on water as waves rolled over them and I knew I had to react quickly. I took off all my clothes so I was just in my swim suit and dove in after them. When I got to them I pulled them back to the group and gave them my life jacket and another guides life jackets to help them float even more. We were struggling to get them back in the canoes and others were struggling to fight the waves so we sent as many campers as we could to the nearest island to get shelter from the water.
   Thinking too quickly we accidentally sent a canoe of campers with the med-kit. This also meant that they had the spot device used to send a help call to Sue. Josie, Cecelia and the rest of the campers went to the island with the first group to help call Sue while I stayed in the water with our last canoe and our two campers. I angled the canoe so that my back was to the waves and the canoe was blocking the waves from hitting our other two campers.
   While we were floating there, waiting there in the water we tried to flag down a fishemen’s ship, but it was too far away. Luckily, Josie had run into some fisherman and brought them over to help us. They took the two campers in their boat back to Laketrails and I hopped in the last canoe and paddled to the rest of our group.
   When Sue finally arrived, she brought us all towels, and took me back to Base Camp with the canoe that swamped. Finally, being 6:00 p.m. I was back at Base Camp, drinking warm water and warming back up with my two campers. Tomorrow she will take us back out to our group with a new canoe.