What an odd way to retract a story.

A third crocodile latched on to Genevieve Sawyer’s leg, then a fourth. The swimmer cried out in renewed distress.

Having already dispatched the first two crocodiles with hammer blows of mighty fists, Dan Strauss was in no mood to brook further nonsense from reptiles today, especially not after he’d already shattered his kayak paddle beating that great white shark to death.

Still, even Dan’s prodigious strength was beginning to fail, owing to blood loss from the school of stingrays that had impaled him after some diot on the beach had flipped his kayak during the rescue launch. Dan realized it wasn’t enough to fight strong. If he was going to rescue fair Genevieve, he’d fight to start fighting smart.

The beach in question is almost certainly the Ballard pocket beach right next to the Ballard Elks club. Since it's used by nearly everyone who rents paddleboards from Surf Ballard, I don't think it's particularly secret.

A couple of paragraphs would have sufficed.

A mountain over a molehill to be sure. In fairness, swimming out into the shipping channel from of the Ballard locks is absolutely going to alarm onlookers, regardless of her swimming ability. Not a smart move.

Contrary to all the whiners in the comment section, I enjoyed this article. It was an amusing slice-of-life story.

I heard Alex Pedersen was driving the boat that nearly hit her.

Thank you, Nathalie. And Genevieve Sawyer and Dan Strauss. That was a fun read.