One learning experience that I will never forget was my Spelunking adventure. Whilst in college in London I was a member of the College Spelunking (caving) club and ventured into underground caves in the limestone areas of the west country of England. It turns out that southwest Texas also has a large limestone area with many caves. So I joined the San Antonio Spelunking club and went off to west Texas to explore new caves. Whilst putting on my gear and getting ready to go down into a cave whole, the team leader said , just a minute, and started throwing stones into the entrance of the cave. I thought this was a bit odd, but surmised it was a religious caving ritual to bless our journey. So when I asked him what the ritual was for he calmly replied... to get rid of the rattlesnakes. Nervously I moved through the entrance to the cave and followed the team leader exploring this enormous underground world and the wonders of stalactites and stalactmites, squeezing through small crevices with the stream flowing through my jump suite. However, the one unique experience that impressed me the most was that I ventured to a spot within the large cave that no one had ever been before. How did I know that. Well, when I pulled myself up to look over a ledge I was looking at a shallow pool and as my fingers pushed into the surface of the water the thin layer of what looked like ice, but was actually a calcite deposit, shattered before me.

I survived my Spelunking trips and actually got used to the stone ritual. I now was ready to participate in a new kind of a sport that my new country offered. So it wasn't long before a friend introduced me to sport canoeing. There is an annual Canoe race from San Marcos, Texas down to the Corpus Christi bay on the Gulf Coast. So my friend and I researched what we could about the 200 mile race and how we could win the grand prize. It seemed the Canadians used to win every year. Se we surmised that it must be their superior quality canoes that gave them the edge. Therefore we designed and made a canoe of styrofoam and fiber glass. Made to be light but strong. We would take it out each weekend and practice on the San Marcos river. Each time we brought it home it seemed the canoe was getting heavier and heavier and since we had access to a huge oven, we would put it in there to bake out the water we had absorbed. We also took it down to the Corpus Christi bay and practiced sailing the canoe across the choppy water.

We were on our final practice before the race and had set the canoe in the water and taken off with my friend in the front and me in the back. The next thing that happened was the pinnacle of our racing experience. We were moving at a pretty good clip when suddenly we hit a load of concrete that had been dumped in the river. This was not just ordinary concrete, but reinforced concrete where the rebar, sticking out of one piece, sliced the front off of the canoe. Undaunted, we turned the canoe around and I sat in the back with the open slice behind me and began to slowly sink lower and lower into the water. To make matters more exciting, I was leaning into the bank ready to push off with a powerful stroke to launch us foreword and found myself looking straight at a water moccasin. Fortunately I got by the snake but the canoe was rapidly sinking into the water. I don't think Michael Phelps could have beat me out of that river. So if you plan to build a fiber glass and styrofoam canoe, I would recommend you use independent cell styrofoam.