When I was 13 or so we went on this huge camping trip with the local Boy Scout groups. It was like 20 different scout groups, so easily 100+ kids, we went on the Snake river rafting. 20+ rafts all together. In the course of the day a bunch of the rafts got caught together in a particularly rough part of the river and 2 of them capsized. Several kids went under, one of them lost his vest and didn't resurface, 12 year old kid iirc. My group had already gone through that part of the river but when they got word out we pulled the rafts and ended the trip. They found the kid's body the next day somewhere further down the river. I didn't know him or anything but it was weird at the next scout meeting as they discussed what happened. I was never a fan of river rafting anyway, and that just cemented it. I went a few more times, couple of them with scouts again, once with our church group, as we had a couple of youth leaders who were teachers who did river rafting expeditions during the summers for extra money, and then once with family. But I never really enjoyed it. I HATE the feeling of going under water when it is unexpected, enough that I just don't really even swim. I learned how to swim, but never enjoyed it really. And a few times on those rafting trips I had my own experience of being thrown from the raft and being pulled under the water by the undertow and the boat and that is horrible. No thank you.
Now, a hot tub I can enjoy. But not being in open water. The crazy thing is, I love to sail. Various family members of mine have had sailboats over the years, and I always loved that, being on the water, feeling the boat move with the wind. My cousin is a pharma rep and makes ungodly amounts of money, and he has owned a couple of catamarans and raced them. I went out with him a few times and that is truly thrilling. Those things would move through the water like nothing else. Well, on top of the water really. One of my dream retirement scenarios has me and the mrs living on a sailboat as big as we can safely operate together and traveling around coastal cities, or living on the boat in Hawaii and giving tourists rides around the islands to make extra retirement cash. I would love that. I would just rarely get in the water directly.
Seriously though, drowning would have to be the worst way to die that I can imagine, other than crazy unrealistic **** like torture. But the feeling of helplessness and panic brought on by sudden unexpected submersion in water is terrifying. And depending on how cold the water is, it can take several minutes before you go unconscious. Just horrible.
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