Swimming and Canoeing

What a fun filled day on the water. I went swimming with Myra's family. The kids were so nice to let me play on their rafts. If you know me well, I was a little nervous going into the Koyuk River because it was dirty looking and I don't like to touch the bottoms of lakes or rivers. Well, Romay was motor boater. She motored me around while I lay on the raft. We got into a barge whole and it freaked me out. I stepped down and I sunk in the mud. I rushed to grab the raft and swim out of there. Ethan was also kind to let me borrow his raft. We swam for about an hour. We walked up the beach a ways and then floated down. I loved the water and it didn't take me too long to get used to it.

Picture: A bloated dead walrus

Myra, a smart Eskimo as she is, made a fire with one match. It was nice to stand by the fire when you got out of the water. The temperature was about 75 degrees.

After swimming, I went canoeing with Mandy on the Koyuk River. She just bought the canoe and it was so much fun. It was a tough job carrying the canoe on your shoulders all the way down to the beach. I was really buff! We took a couple of breaks. The mud was sticky and if you stayed in one place too long it sucked you in. So we finally got out and went up river. The tide was out so it was a little hard to start. It was a little choppy out there but so beautiful. The clouds were amazing. We passed a family swimming where I was earlier and tried to find the inlet of Coal Creek but couldn't. So we went to a point and pulled the canoe up the beach so it wouldn't float away. We went onto the bank as quick as we could so we wouldn't get stuck in the mud. We picked a handful of salmon berries to go along with crackers and peanut butter. We enjoyed the beauty of Koyuk once again. The tide was out further as we came back to shore close to the village so it was even longer to get the canoe home.