Kayak was a little less than stable

There’s nothing to worry about, the woman said. It’s next to impossible to fall out of a kayak.
Not two minutes later, I was in the water.
We’ve kayaked for years at the lake near Connie’s family’s cabin in New Hampshire. A two-person kayak was her birthday present one year, and it gets a pretty good workout each summer.
But this wasn’t New Hampshire. It was Key West.
And it wasn’t a two-person kayak, it was the usual one-person variety.
It also — as it turned out — wasn’t properly moored onto the concrete embankment.
So when I put my foot into it and started to shift my weight — roughly 90 seconds after being told there was nothing to worry about — the kayak was afloat, with me standing — momentarily — on one foot, trying to get the other foot in and my butt planted on the seat. Someone should have gotten a picture, but I had the camera and it went into the water with me.
The guide, who was going to lead us on an excursion through a mangrove swamp, seemed to think I’d gone into the drink on purpose. She was miffed that I’d shown that it was indeed possible to fall out of a kayak.
Quickly, she had me dump water out of the kayak, get it right in the water, mooring it properly this time, and get in, still dripping from my plunge. Then, still irritated with me, she led the group of kayaks out over the bay to the mangrove swamp.
I followed in the caboose position, humiliated and wet and angry about damaging my camera.
Fortunately, Connie stayed with me. She’s a former lifeguard and water safety instructor, and her calming tone helped me get my confidence back as we headed toward the mangroves.
But I quickly knew that all was not well.
There was still some water in the kayak, and it shifted every time I paddled, making what is usually a very stable craft an unstable one. Still, I was getting the hang of it when we went into the maze of mangrove roots that provide a coastal barrier and important ecosystem.
It was a tight squeeze. Paddling a kayak was tricky. And more than once we had to scrunch down to make it beneath the tangled system of woody roots.
The last time, I didn’t scrunch enough.
A mangrove root caught my right shoulder, effectively pulling me out of the kayak.
Fortunately, the water wasn’t deep. But I was up to my collarbone in sea water. My kayak was empty. And my camera was the least of my problems.
Connie, however, had stayed close. Though she was a kayak length or two ahead, she was able to calmly talk me through the process of emptying the water out of the capsized boat, then through the extremely tricky bit of maneuvering necessary to get back in.
It took a few minutes, but I made it.
The guide — thoroughly honked off by now — had gone on with the rest of the group.
The two of us limped along in the rear, finally making our way out of the mangroves and onto the bay.
There was just one problem. The second capsizing of my kayak meant that it had a gallon or two of water sloshing around in it.
This time, every time I paddled, the kayak rocked wildly as water sloshed from one side to the other, exaggerating the movement and threatening to dump me one more time.
So progress was slow as I made my way back to port. I made it safely, eventually, but my sneakers sloshed from the sea water the rest of the day.