How serious was the situation? I really don't know. There are so many things that could have happened, but they didn't and we all made it back okay and we all recovered just fine. Had it happened last week or the week before that, who knows. But it didn't happen then. Our boats swamped today, the day it was 82 degrees outside. The water was probably 35 or 40 degrees. Maybe warmer. I really have no clue, but it was very cold and had ice on it only a few weeks ago. What if Coach K and MAJ Hall had taken the people they fished out all the way back to the dock? But they didn't and they got the rest of us out in time.

I only started to get scared when Coach K left with two people and right then our shell started to sink. I'd been at least half an hour, maybe an 45 minutes since we had started to take on water. I thought she had left us out there all alone. The shell was completely submerged in the water and the current was pretty fast. It was then that the thought crossed my mind that if she had taken the people all the way back to the dock then the rest of us might not make it. Since we couldn't row anymore we made the decision to detach the oars and flip the shell so that we could use it to hold on to and float. I now know why we have to watch that safety video every year where it depicts this exact situation. Before we all laughed at it because no one thought that it'd ever be that serious. Last year a few boat swamped, but the coaches were right there and the water was warmer. This time we risked hypothermia after a few minutes in the water. The video also taught us to stay with the shell. It's hard to judge the distance to shore and people are more likely to die when they try and swim there on their own.

I don't know how long we were in the water holding on to the shell. Margaret told us to try and keep our feet out of the water because the air was much warmer. I'm guessing it was under 5 minutes from the time that we flipped the shell to the time that Coach Hall came and got us, but really I have no clue. Later on when I was talking to people they were saying that they felt like time slowed down and they were starting to feel delirious. Leah said that she started to try and gather up oars, but then someone told her to stop because the oars didn't really matter. They could float. It was more important to hold onto the shell and wait to get rescued. When Coach Hall came and picked us up he had us all huddle together in the center of his boat. We were all trying to unravel space blankets, but they were hard to unravel and our hands were all numb. One of the Coaches gave me his t-shirt. I tried to give it to one of the girls that looked colder than I did, but Sarah and Annah made me put it on. Since I'd lost my sandals when the boat swamped I had to run barefoot back to the boathouse once we got to the dock. The girls that were dry ran and got us the blankets we had for emergencies like this one, and then went up and turned on all of the showers for us. Some people were too cold to get out of their wet clothes themselves, so others had to help them.

The novices were very helpful and ran around doing what they could for us. A few of them made hot chocolate and coffee for anyone that wanted it. There was an ambulance waiting for us, but thankfully no one ended up needing it. I'm amazed that things turned out as well as they did. They didn't recover the shells until a few hours later and I have no clue what shape they are in. We lost a couple hundred dollars worth of equipment that was in the shells, but that's miniscule compared to the fact that all 18 of us who were in those two shells today that swamped were able to walk away from the whole thing just fine.