Untitled
Last Saturday I went to my aunt and uncle’s cabin for some badly needed tubing. I got in several rides on various tubes, and I also tried barefoot skiing off of the boom (a metal pole that you stick off the side of the boat and hang on to). I was generally sore from the waist up from hanging on for dear life, plus a few minor bumps and bruises (namely on my chest and lower back from hitting the water so hard I thought I hit a person), but I was shocked at how sore my legs were from dragging on the water in my attempt to barefoot ski. I never made it up to my feet, but I think with some excersize I might be able to. Instead I just dragged on the surface of the water, which didn’t hurt at the time, but my legs are still sore to the touch from it, and over the week bruises have come to the surface from mid shin up to my thighs. For some reason it amazes me that water can cause bruises.
– Randomly, as I was leaving, some guy almost drowned and my uncle ended up saving him. A pontoon in the middle of the lake ran out of gas and one of the guys on it decided to swim to shore without a life jacket to get more. I’m not sure if he thought he would just swim back with a jug of gas or what, but what happened was that he got about 30 feet from shore (I would estimate that he swam almost 200 feet) when he got horrible cramps and started to go under. The lake in question drops off pretty quickly and so he couldn’t push off the bottom. Also, this guy was rather buff, so he lacked the bouyancy of body fat to keep him afloat. He started to shout ‘help’ really loudly, and then started to go under. My uncle happened to be near the pontoon when this happened, and the people aboard saw what was happening, attracted my uncle’s attention and he headed toward the guy, pulling him out of the water as he went under for probably the last time. How insane. Things to be learned from this: do not try to swim across a large (busy) lake for gasoline without a lifejacket and make sure you have people watching you if you decide to risk it.