An Unexpected Swim

College Fjord An Unexpected Swim
July 3, 2000

To my dismay, we spent only one night and three days on the boat in Prince William Sound in 2000. Dennis' priority was to rebuild his shop at the homestead. The old one burned to the ground in 1996. So most of the summer was work.

Every minute on the water was incredible, though. On July 3, Dennis' daughter-in-law Marie accompanied us onto the Sound. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to go, especially after we discovered the shift mechanism was malfunctioning and wouldn't go into neutral or reverse. But it was such a beautiful day that we went anyway. It was perfectly calm and perfectly clear, a day made in heaven. We skimmed through silky waters past otters with babies on their tummies and headed up College Fjord. I've always wanted to go all the way up to the glaciers there, but it's a long ways (requires a lot of gas) and icy headwinds often make it an unpleasant trip. This time, the weather was great but we were foiled by floating ice. Without reverse, Dennis didn't want to risk going into it.

So we went back south across the fiord and anchored near an old mine. Marie was even more uncertain she wanted to abandon the Bayliner for the canoe, but once we were underway, she began to feel more confident and even asked to paddle.

I switched places with her and took the center position. Dennis and Marie paddled through glassy water back to the anchored "mother ship." Maybe it was the tide, maybe it was a little breeze, maybe it was human error, but we pulled up to the big boat a little wide. I leaned toward the swim platform just as Marie did and we were instantly upside down and underwater! We were far from the ice by now and the water was surprisingly warm. I thought, "Oh, no! It's Marie's first trip on the boat and we've validated her worst fears!" But when I surfaced, she was giggling and enjoying the adventure. The sunshine felt terrific once we hoisted ourselves out. The only loss was my rubber boots, which I'd taken off so I could kneel while paddling. We were very glad the camera had been left in the Bayliner!