Swimming in 38 Degree Water

This past weekend, I flew up to Maine to compete in the annual Kenduskeag Stream Race in Bangor, Maine; it's a 16.5 mile race over water that ranges from still to class IV rapids. There were about 500 canoes and kayaks and over 800 contestants overall. Dad and I were in an old aluminium Boy Scout canoe that he bought just for this race.

It was a timed event with 5 teams starting every minute. We were number 332 and we had to wait a little over an hour for our turn.

We made very good time in the first 10 miles and passed through several small rapids. However, the stream was higher that it has ever been since they started the race 41 years ago and the water was moving very fast over the notorious Six Mile Falls. About three quarters of the people who ran the falls capsized; Dad and I were among them. There is always a large crowd gathered at this spot to watch the spills (they are called vultures). Between the vultures and the families of the contestants, there were several hundred people lined up on the bridge overlooking the falls.

We capsized at the first set of falls and floated for about 200 yards through the rapids. I think I hit every rock on the way down. We held onto the canoe to try to keep our heads above the water which worked pretty well. Did I mention the water was kind of cold?

As we neared the bridge I waved to the crowd and attempted to nonchalantly say "I decided to take a swim because I was getting a little hot." It came out kind of squeaky though.

Just downstream of the bridge was a rescue canoe that was tied off to someone up on the bridge. The person on the bridge was supposed to move back and forth and let out line to help the guy in the canoe snag people coming through (the rescuers were hopelessly overwhelmed by the number of people in the water). As we got close to him, the rescuer in the boat yelled up to the guy on the bridge "Give me more rope! I need more rope!" For some unknown reason, they couldn't let him out any more and he couldn't get over far enough to get Dad, so Dad and the canoe floated on down the river. I was able to get just far enough over to catch the rescue canoe and he was able to drag me over to shore. (Notice in this picture that Dad is in the water with the canoe there are four empty canoes and only one still upright; that's about the way it was all day)


From there I met up with Annie, Lianna, and Mom and we started trying to catch up with Dad. I started hiking downstream through the brush and finally caught up to Dad after about 25 minutes or so- but he was on the other side of the river so I hiked back up to the bridge and met him. He had been in the water significantly longer than I had been and was pretty cold. We finally met up with Mom and changed into our dry clothes.

Since it had taken so long to do all that, we knew we were done as far as the race was concerned. Plus, our canoe had two large dents in it and some rivets had pulled out of the ribs so our canoe would no longer float anyways so we called it a day and headed off to Olive Garden.

I did find out one interesting tidbit though. When I passed under the bridge my mother and sisters had run across the bridge to watch us come out the other side. In doing so, my mother had walked up to the railing and leaned over -standing on the rescue line. So when the rescuer in the canoe had been yelling for "MORE ROPE," my dear mother was standing on that very same rope that was supposed to save me.

We had a good time and survived without any major injuries. We were pretty sore the next day though. Dad lost his hat, his glasses and his designer contoured paddle. I lost my sunglasses. We also learned some valuable lessons for next time.

Here are some articles about the race:

Bangor Daily News

Channel 2 video clip go to THIS LINK and fast forward to about 8:15