Personal Narrative: The Beach

A few years ago, I was out on New Melones Reservoir fishing with a couple of my childhood friends. We found ourselves far upriver, past the two bridges, with steep canyon walls surrounding us. The sheer vertical cliffs stretched on for miles. There are just a few breaks where the rocks have collapsed due to rainwater that flows down the hillside. This creates a slide. If someone, or something happened to enter the water, the only way out would be to use one of these washed out rocky areas.
It is quite an amazing place to be. The walls seem to absorb all sound, the air is still and if you take a moment to listen, you can hear a random bird in the distance. Sometimes you can even hear a whistle in the wind or the thoughts in your mind as they are being processed. Other than that, it is near complete silence.
Being the only ones in the area (so we thought) we were casting, laughing and having a good time. Then over our shoulders we heard a peculiar sound and immediately grew silent. We looked behind and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Some trees sticking out of the water, or what looked like a snag or scattered driftwood floating. We then turned to each other with a befuddled look on our faces, almost questioning ourselves and our sanity. After a short pause, there it was again. A grunt? Only this time it was …show more content…
It was not a snag or driftwood in the water. It was a giant black bear approaching the boat. When I say approaching the boat, I mean, swimming right at us. Quickly we scrambled to escape certain attack. We turned the electric trolling motor on high and proceeded to flee. After a couple seconds, we realized that the bear was not traveling at a threatening speed. Nor was it trying to eat us. We just happened to have the boat positioned to where it was blocking one of these slide areas, which was the only escape route from the water for the bear. We politely moved to the side and let the bear pass, as if we had another