Saving lives

I've done the Charles River swim three times now, and liked it less and less each time. The thing is that you have to swim a mile, and that's far for me. But they do have really nice tshirts. So, this year I signed up to volunteer on the safety team as a kayaker. And I rescued someone!

The hardest part of the volunteering was that you were meant to arrive at 6:30 am, which is really early for me. I just got a new folding bike (yay!) and so the plan was to ride the bike to the hatchshell instead of driving since it would take about the same and cost way less. Surprisingly I actually woke up at 5:30 and was ready to get up, so it wasn't that hard to leave at 6:10 and get there at 6:30. It's so much nicer than riding a blue bike - they are very convenient, but super clunky and heavy.

I was assigned to share a kayak with a lifeguard, and when I saw her standing on the dock I went over and introduced myself. We stood around together waiting for the safety briefing, but not really talking because it was just about 7 am. Then they took us by boat to where the kayaks are (I thought they were across the river, but actually they were at the community sailing place right next door). For some reason, though, I wound up switched out of the boat with the nice quiet lifeguard and being put in one with this other woman. We got in our kayak and instead of using her kayak paddle like a kayak paddle, she used it as a canoe paddle, doing 5 strokes or so per side before switching to the other side (Yes, I counted, because I was so surprised). So, of course we were zig zagging along, and then occasionally she would stick her oar in the water to steer. In my head I was like "and this is why I don't do team sports."

Anyhow, we got set up in our zone and soon the swimmers were off. The ones in front were so fast! It was amazing. And soon the big group was coming through. We were sitting and watching everyone when I spotted a swimmer just hanging out and yelling for help. And we were off - fortunately we were supposed to raise a paddle to get the attention of the safety boat, so I told the woman to hold her paddle up while I rowed. At one point she was bringing it down and I was like "lift it back up" because the last thing I wanted when someone was struggling was for her to take us zig zagging around. But then she was all "you are going too fast, you are going to hit her!" and slowing us down (I was not going to hit her, and even if I came close to her it would be better than having her drown). Anyhow, the woman was OK, she just had a cramp and wasn't feeling well. She grabbed onto the side of the kayak while the rescue boat came over. Another woman who was just tired of swimming but looked fine got in with her. So that was my save :)

A friend of mine was swimming and she was near the end of the pack. I found her and she was going a little off course - I wanted to spot her in, because there were plenty of extra kayakers so we could do that, but of course Ms. ZigZag couldn't help with that. I was so glad to get back to the paddle place and get out of that boat with her.

After my friend took me to Burlington because my car was in the shop there and she doesn't live that far away. But then it turned out that although it was about noon, my car wasn't going to be ready until like 4. It was really hot out and I didn't want to waste my Saturday, so I decided to ride the 12.5 miles home. I questioned my life choices for a bit, but actually it wasn't that bad - I had been thinking I would bike out to get my car, but decided not to because it was so uphill. But the way home was mostly downhill, which was awesome. Today I'm pooped.