#Kayak March 15

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Today contribution to the 30-Day Letter Writing Coach4aday Challenge is on a KAYAK trip.

The challenge involves composing a letter to yourself when you were an earlier age. The goal is to focus on a value, habit, or choice that needs to be adopted or made.

In 2014 the Chancellor at UNC Pembroke Kyle Carter decided that after graduation in May his entire executive leadership team would do a four-mile KAYAK trip as a group. Today’s letter is what I learned.

Day 15-Letter-River Trip

May 2014

Dear Kayak Rookie Dan:

Today you are going to go on your first ever Kayak trip. It will be down a four-mile stretch of the Lumber River.  You will go with a group of leaders from UNC Pembroke.

Here is a little info about that river.  It is in south-central North Carolina in the flat Coastal Plain. The river’s headwaters are known as Drowning Creek; the waterway known as the Lumber River extends from the Scotland County-Hoke County border 115 miles downstream to the North Carolina-South Carolina border. Soon after crossing into South Carolina, the Lumber River flows into the Little Pee Dee River, which eventually flows into the Great Pee Dee River and on into Winyah Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

River Trip Lessons

Navigating a river is going to teach you the following.

1. Everyone, I mean everyone you talk about your trip down the Lumber RIVER will warn you about a poisonous snake falling into the boat (kayak). It will never happen. It will be a reminder-don’t let other people’s fears paralyze you.

2. When you do something that has risk -minimize the risk-any activity involving a kayak and water has risk-wear a life jacket. You won’t wear one and will nearly drown when your kayak flips. You will hit a log and momentarily got trapped under that tree. Life lesson – our lives can end in an instant especially if we are risky. If life offers you a life jacket wear one.

3. You will flip your kayak twice during this trip and both times it was because you will attempt to go against the flow of the river. Life lesson- don’t fight life go with the current.

4. There is safety and power with a group. When you went in the water you had people around you to get your kayak flipped over and get back on your way. Life lesson be part of a group.

5. The RIVER will leave you sore and bruised-but the price was worth it-You will get to do something new and experience nature in a fascinating way. Life lesson – doing something new and communing with nature is worth a few small bruises and aches.

Grown Up Dan