When I was a little girl, I loved the water: in the summer, I could spend all day in the Stroth's pool next door, at Ridgeland Commons, or, once Stevensville became a part of our lives, up at the lake. In the winter, I took swim lessons at Concordia year after year, through to the lesson where they make the kids jump in fully clothed and make (piss-poor!) flotation devices out of their own jeans then lug another person to the side of the pool. I remember bathing suits I had because I spent so much time in them. There was a maroon Speed-O with three thin white stripes I particularly liked in grammar school, and I remember that Katie O'Keefe had the same one. I wore it until the material at the belly and the butt was fuzzy from rubbing concrete hauling myself out of the pool.
I still love the water, which is why I was excited when Chris was interested in renting a kayak. I was also surprised, because he doesn't share my delight with all things wet. In defense of the rest of this story, I am a swimmer: I don't know anything about kayaking. And among the things I don't know about kayaking is that a tandem kayak may very well be more difficult to navigate than a single. Who knew?! It is clear at this point that we rented a tandem; I climbed into the front and Chris the back, and away we went. The lake is stunning from our patio, gorgeous from the shore and absolutely sensational from the lake.
We spent some time curving along the shore before heading further out into the lake. The views were amazing. The property on which we are staying is even better looking from the water than it is from the road and there are areas where rather than shore there is sheer rock face. We had read that at its greatest the lake is 1200 feet deep and becomes very deep very quickly because of its volcanic origin and size. This may not seem particularly deep to those of you who regularly fish the Great Lakes, but consider this: Lake Michigan is only about 900 feet at its greatest depth and has a surface area of 22,278 square miles while Atitlan is 1200 feet deep and has a surface area of 50 square miles. It is because it is such a small lake that its depth is so striking.
All of this a fact-based lead in to the part of the story where we tip the kayak, both of us fall out and we can't get back in. And then it occurs to us, there were a few things we probably should have done while we were still in shallow waters. Like practice getting back in the kayak if we fall out. But we didn't. And you know when you and the person you are with have just a completely different reaction to an event you both experience? Well... my very first thought was to see if Chris had lost his glasses and when I saw he had not, I thought the whole thing was hilarious and was laughing so hard that my mouth filled with water (which we had previously learned is full of hydrochloric acid from the copious amount of pesticides they use to grow avocados as big as softballs here), and I found it exhilarating and fun.
Chris didn't. In fact, he failed to see any humor at all in the situation. We got the kayak turned right side again (do not picture here some sort of sleek colorful kayak made out of a material NASA developed... it was big and hulking and made of something as heavy as that lake is deep), but it was full of water. This afternoon, we found a million videos on YouTube that explain how to get back in a kayak when you have tipped mid-lake, but that was this afternoon. We fell out of the kayak this morning. This story is not without valiant attempts to regain the kayak, but it is full of failed attempts. Further, the current was not in our favor so while we tried to swim the kayak back to shore (while holding the paddles--not easy), it simply was not possible.
So... what to do? Wait until someone will help you, but you are not in the middle of a crowded market; you are in the middle of a lake. Eventually (and this was one of those life experiences that seems an eternity but was probably only 15 minutes or so of treading water), another tandem kayak came along with some gracious Guatemalans who agreed to tow us in which proved to be extremely difficult because of the current and their attempts not to capsize due to the weight of Chris, me and our kayak full of water behind them. Chris and I each had a hand on their kayak and a hand on ours. Despite the inherent difficulty of the situation, we had a rather nice conversation. They were both of Germen descent but live in Guatemala and are vacationing in Atitlan. They made some great suggestions about places around the lake we haven't yet been. I'm not sure Chris was really a part of this conversation... he was on the other side of the kayak, but in my book it will go down as one of the most fabulously awkward, bizarre and pleasant conversations I've ever had.
Eventually, pulling us became a bit too much for them, but we were able to flag down a bigger boat to tow us all in. First, there was a ridiculous exchange while the man in the boat suggested I climb into his boat which was never going to work in a million years and then he agreed to just toss us a line. Throughout this exchange, the man in the kayak kept telling me to watch not to get my feet chopped off by the propeller of the big boat. It was a stressful moment. When we got back to shore, the man we rented the kayak from and another man were on the dock shaking their heads. I'm sure we were a sight as we pulled that kayak from the shallow waters up onto the beach: did I mention we failed to wear our swimsuits for this adventure?
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