Final Week: Turning Point

After a few bad swims, I developed a fear for big water. I swam above and into big bus and then my head didn't come up far enough for me to take decent sized breaths in huge waves and I had a lot of down time. I got stuck in a nasty hole and it wasn't pleasant. But even though I scrapped up and bruised my knee and shin, I came out relatively unharmed. The swims stuck with me, though, and stayed there, making me terrified of all big water. That is, until I decided that I wasn't going to let my fear stop me. Colli was the rapid I had to run to help me get over this burdensome state I was in. I wanted to go from river left to river right and miss Big Kahuna. That didn't happen. Instead, I saw I was going into this giant mass of extreme foam and followed what TC said when I asked what to do if this exact moment would happen. I turned my boat and punched the monster in its right side. As I came over the wave and was heading into the second, I flipped and rolled up right as the third wave crashed onto my boat and flipped me again. I rolled up immediately and booked it to the left eddie. My boat loves to flip on eddie lines but I rolled up quickly. I wasn't going to mess around when the pour-over was near by. Adrian got me to relax and a big smile formed on my face followed by laughter after I realized I did it. I then farried across to the river right eddie. I did it. I faced my fears and realized big water isn't that bad after all. Next stop was voluntarily getting worked in Lucifer's Anus. It took me three tries to get into the hole. First because I was too far right. Second, I had to roll back up above it then was again too far right. Third, I paddled farther left than I thought I needed to be. As I looked into the white death of a hole, all I could think of was "Is this it?". That's right, I couldn't think of anything else but that because I honestly couldn't tell if I was too far right again. I slammed into the hole and was getting a terrific beatdown saying to myself "This is awesome!" I rolled back up after I felt the water calm down to hear everyone cheering on and near shore. A fellow keener came up to tell me that my trip through the devil was awesome and after saying thank you I asked if I made it into the hole. He looks at me and says "You went straight into the middle". A gigantic smile grew across my face and my only response w