Where are we up to? I think it is the last part of my holiday. I started this a few years ago and thankfully have nearly ended.
The last part, after the parachuting and horse riding, was Canadian canoeing. Before you can “jump” into this activity, the instructors have to ensure all the safety requirements are in place. For this activity, a basic test of can you swim 25 meters then submerge your head and swim another 25 meters. Bloody easy. I can swim like a fish.
We set off on the first day for the swimming test. When we arrived at our destination there was not a swimming pool in sight. We were up the mountains in the Rockies and stood next to a pool that was fed by a river.
“Right lads, kit off and prepare for the swimming test”.
A pool! A fecking pool! I know the forces are tight but you would have thought they would have taken us to an indoor, fully heated swimming pool ffs. I stripped off and resigned myself to the fact that I would have to swim across a god-knows-what-infested mountain pool. As I walked to the water I was startled by this in-human scream.
WHAT THE FECK WAS THAT!!!!!
I looked over to see the first of the lads floundering in the water and screaming blue murder.
FFS, IS THERE CROCODILES IN THE WATER!!!!!!!!
The lad managed to get about 5 meters from the bank and then turned around and came back. As he passed me he muttered,
“Fuck that, I am going hill-walking instead.”
What was going on? I could see the instructors pissing themselves laughing. I watched two more ahead of me dive in. 1 completed it and one came back out vowing to do another activity. It was then my turn. The instructor came over and gave me some advice. He said,
“Swim like fuck and get out fast before you freeze”. What the feck was he talking about?
I heard an instructor shout “It’s your turn.”
In I dived.
At this point my bollocks felt they were inside my throat trying to suffocate me.
The water was FECKING FREEZING!!!!!!!
This wasn’t just cold. I grew up in Wales and went swimming in the Irish Sea. That is cold, but this was just indescribable. At the age of ten I had got my 2000 meter badge so was quite proficient in swimming. Just I couldn’t swim in this pool. My long strokes taught as a child turned in to very fast thrashes in the water. My breathing was totally erratic. I didn’t know if I was supposed to be blowing air out or breathing it in. I started to take on water in my lungs. Somehow I reached the 25 meter spot. This was marked by an instructor in a canoe. The next stage was to put your head under the water, achieved in this test by swimming under the canoe. I couldn’t get my head under. However much I tried, my body wouldn’t voluntarily go under the water. I didn’t want to be beaten by this test, so the only thing I could achieve was to swim at the canoe, then scrap my face along it’s edge until my head went under. I felt the top of my head scraping the bottom of the canoe and eventually my head surfaced. I let out this very unmanly scream as my head reached the surface. I could hear the instructors laughing but I was so cold even my mind wouldn’t allow me to form the words I wanted to say to them. So before I go any further,
“YOU INSTRUCTORS WERE TWATS”
Back again. I am now 25 meters from the shore and I have to get back. The strokes have shortened further and I am now just managing a doggy paddle. My body is craving air as my intakes have not been sufficient and I have a bellyful of pond water. I am trying to breath through every orifice, my mouth, nose, ears and arse. I just couldn’t get enough air in. I was now in a panic as I thought I would be drowning. This would be impossible surrounded by 5 instructors but rational thought has gone. Visions of the Titanic film were flying through my head……..but no Leonardo Fecking Di-Capprio am I. And I was definitely not going gracefully. My arms were flailing about I looked like a demented washing machine. Swim? I was even trying to claw the air to drag me along. Eventually, I managed to reach the shore and haul my self up. I looked at my hands and body. I was that blue I looked like a fecking smurf. An instructor came over and said, through tears of laughter, you have passed you can get changed. I waddled over to the truck we had arrived on. I couldn’t walk as my legs wouldn’t bend. The lads who went first helped me climb up and as fast as I could I was drying my self off. One of the lads said to me,
“Lock at your cock.” What the feck was he going on about? “Go on”, he said “We have all looked at our own. You’ll have a shock.”
My eyes peered down and I peeked under my towel. Look at my cock? I would if I knew where the fecker had gone. There was nothing there!!!!! No cock and no balls.
FFS!!!!! WHO HAS STOLEN THEM!!!!!!!!
At that age……I didn’t know what extreme temperature did to your body. I found out in this live experiment. My cock and balls had decided they needed to survive and had dived so far inside me I couldn’t find them.
I managed to get dressed very quickly and then found a tea urn that had been brought along. I managed to get a large mug with extra sugar. I started to warm up at last. It took about ½ an hour for my cock to come back enough that I could grab him and have a piss. My balls dropped back into place about 5-10 minutes after.
Why was this pool so cold? We were later told that the pool is fed from one of the local glaciers. No wonder it was that cold ffs. All I can say is that instructors are bastards, full stop.
The rest of the canoeing was uneventful, apart from two occasions. One was when the canoe overturned and I was trapped beneath it. The second was when I felt the canoe tipping over again so I jumped out to save being trapped. With me jumping out and kicking off, gave the canoe the momentum to right itself and feck off without me. Since they were two man canoes, my partner had a shock when he turned around to speak to me and I wasn’t there. But they are just minor points.
Right. I have now finished my holiday. At fecking last. If I start another one..........some bugger shoot me.
Dave_Notts