What is the worst swimming-related experience you have ever had?

My very first triathlon. I had trained and trained for the swim. Half way into the 1k swim, I turned at a bouy and headed in towards the shore. I was making really good time, and I was almost all the way in, and I noticed that there weren't any other swimmers around me. I thought, this is either really good or really bad. It was really bad. I started to notice that the red marker bouys weren't lining up with the finish area (marked by a bunch of balloons.) Then saw this guy in a kayak coming towards me to ask if I needed help. I looked around, and remembered that there were three bouys I needed to swim around, rather than two. I swam back to the third bouy and ended up swimming about 400 yards further than everyone else. Two months later, I swam the same course 8 minutes faster. The nice part was that I was so far behind coming out of the swim, that I got to pass a lot of people on the bike leg and was not too humiliated in the run.

My very first triathlon. I had trained and trained for the swim. Half way into the 1k swim, I turned at a bouy and headed in towards the shore. I was making really good time, and I was almost all the way in, and I noticed that there weren't any other swimmers around me. I thought, this is either really good or really bad. It was really bad. I started to notice that the red marker bouys weren't lining up with the finish area (marked by a bunch of balloons.) Then saw this guy in a kayak coming towards me to ask if I needed help. I looked around, and remembered that there were three bouys I needed to swim around, rather than two. I swam back to the third bouy and ended up swimming about 400 yards further than everyone else. Two months later, I swam the same course 8 minutes faster. The nice part was that I was so far behind coming out of the swim, that I got to pass a lot of people on the bike leg and was not too humiliated in the run.