Always Prepare For The Worst

If you listened to or, saw some of the social media posts before episode #074 of The HKT Podcast with Steel City Media’s Joe Bowman you would have heard about the canoe trip a couple of my friends and I were about to embark on. To be precise we were planning to canoe the Caledonian Canal which is a 97km journey via some beautiful scenery along canals and lochs from Fort William to Inverness, Scotland.

I have a habit of always trying to relate personal trips, holidays and my everyday life back to somehow being work related, it’s probably annoying to people around me but I struggle to ignore the chance to create some content or test a product out in the wild. If you are a regular listener to the podcast you will know that SAXX Underwear have been a sponsor for a couple of years and, I genuinely love the brand, the product and playing a small part in making peoples lives more comfortable in the underwear department. This up-coming trip provided a chance to put a pair of their boxer’s through the ultimate test. I thought, 5 days rowing, wild camping, open water swim sessions, a couple of 8+ hour drives and a podcast recording session should do the trick. So, I decided to pack just one pair of SAXX Quest boxers for the entire journey to see how they held up. National Geographic described them as ‘the ultimate travel underwear’, is it true? Lets find out….

Early Friday morning we arrived at the beginning of the Caledonian Canal in Fort William, unloaded the canoe from the top of the truck and set it in the water ready for take off. Turns out rowing is pretty hard, especially if like me you’ve never even so much as sat in a canoe never mind rowed one for 97km over a 4 day period. Needless to say, we hit the water and for the first 5km pin balled our way from one side of the canal to the other whilst we tried to figure out the most efficient way to do this thing. At this point I’d been wearing the Quest boxers for over 24 hours and nobody had complained of any odour protruding from me, the anti-microbial properties must be a real thing?

The first day was a long haul and took in 26km of beautiful winding canals and also a trip across our first loch, Loch Oich to our designated camping ground by the side of the water where we relaxed for a couple of hours around a fire, ate some food and sunk a couple of beers. Bliss. 

If you don’t have quality equipment camping sucks. I woke up after the air bed decided to deflate its self during the night and tossed and turned on the hard ground trying the best I could to grab some more sleep. Literally the most comfortable thing in the tent that night was my nuts tucked up in the ball park pouch. I’ve never been jealous of my own nuts before but, I guess there’s a first time for everything. Finally, the sun came up and I opted to try and wake myself up with a swim in the loch we were camping alongside and, test how fast these boxers could dry after being 100% soaked in ice cold loch water. Turns out, really fast! In fact I was super impressed as they went from soaking wet to totally dry in around 20mins with just a hint of morning sunlight to aid the process. Back to full comfort and ready to row a further 24km. 

I’m going to fast forward a couple of days here as the underwear was performing perfectly and moral in the crew was high as we stood at Urquart Castle half way along Loch Ness on our third day of the trip. At this point, our bodies were slightly beaten, we’d covered over 50km and were all feeling pretty confident with our new found canoeing skills. I remember we were stood looking out at Loch Ness and trying to spot point 10km away that would end the day, I remember it was an intimidating view as Loch Ness is the largest expanse of water in the UK and in most parts deeper than the ocean. Our plan was to canoe directly across Loch Ness in a North Easterly direction to a cut away we could make out in the distance. The water looked as still and flat as a mirror but we opted to put on our life jackets incase things got scary. Well, things got real scary real fast about half way across the Loch when the wind picked up, the waves got bigger than we had ever anticipated and our canoe began to take on water. I was sat in the middle of the canoe and was frantically trying to pale our water, row and also steer us in the right direction by dipping my oar in the water to keep us going straight and not hitting waves head on. Reality began to set in, we were in serious trouble. 

One wave hit the front of the boat at a strange angle which, coupled with carrying an extra 10-15 litres of water meant we capsized rapidly and we were all instantly immersed in the water, in shock and in disbelief at the situation we had found ourselves in. The water was cold, really really cold but thankfully my life jacket had automatically inflated itself around the top half of my body. At this point we were approximately 1km from the shoreline to our right and the only thing we could do was attempt to stay calm and began swimming to the shore where we could see a camper van parked by the water. Unfortunately as I began to try to swim it felt as though my life vest tried to come up over my head so I instantly grabbed hold of it in front of my chest with both hands and grasped it tightly. At this point the only thing I could do was lay on my back and kick my legs to try to propel myself to the shore whilst ice cold waves splashed in my face and my limbs began to feel the wrath of the cold. Each time I turned over to check the progress of my efforts I was hugely disappointed, the shore wasn’t getting any closer, in fact if anything it was getting further away, I’d also lost my two friends and was unsure if they were safe or not. It’s tough to describe what was going on in my head at this point, my brain was telling me to stop trying to swim and to take off my life vest, I was thinking of my family and repeating a couple of lines from a song by Raphael Lake, “don’t die today” which became my mantra for getting out of this increasingly scary situation. I recall having cramp in my legs so bad that I could barely move them, my calves were cramped solid and my groin was tight but still I kept kicking and kicking with everything I had through the pain. I’d been in the water for approximately 40 - 45mins when all of a sudden a helicopter appeared above my head, a man was in front of me and all I remember saying was “I’m glad your here” as I was winched out of the water into the safety of the rescue helicopter. “Tuck your legs up” I remember a man shouting at me but I couldn’t, my legs and entire body was in agony and shaking uncontrollably as hypothermia had well untruly set in. 

I’m not sure how much time went by but, I remember coming round to reality laid in a hospital bed under a mass of blankets, connected to an IV and with warm air somehow circulating me. I landed in hospital with a dangerously low body temperature and in a hypothermic state so the team of doctors were doing all they could to raise my core body temperature and prevent any organ failure. PK levels are heightened in the blood when in hypothermic conditions which can cause a persons kidneys to fail which appeared to be the major worry. I won’t ever forget the relief I felt when I saw James across the room in the hospital in a different bed and then a short time after that Alex appeared looking equally as happy to see me. We were all alive and safe.

At this point your probably wondering about the underwear? Well, wether they feature a ball park pouch, are anti-microbial, have flat seems etc etc I really don’t care. SAXX describe them as ‘life changing’ underwear but for me, the experience was definitely life changing and I have a new pair of lucky pants! 

The moral of the story is always prepare for the worst when going on trips in the outdoors, wether that be a ride at your local mountain bike trails, a long run in the mountains or a seemingly safe canoe trip with your friends. You never know when the conditions could change and you could find yourself in a situation needing extra equipment and help from our incredible services. Next time your heading out just be mindful and consider what your taking and make sure people know where your going and how long you expect to be. It really could save your life.