Alex was just about to push her boat into the water when she realized that she needed a way to propel herself through the water. Looking around for one of her abandoned pieces of wood, she found a fairly long branch. The swamp was surely too deep for her to use the branch as a pole. It would never touch the bottom. Was it good enough to be used as an oar? Alex wasn't sure that it would work, but she had come too far to fail now.

Alex had another idea, but this one was very far fetched. What did she have to lose? Facing a tree, she pointed her wand at it and said, "Inflecto Telum". Arrows flew from the tip of her wand and some fortunately pierced the trunk of the tree. She pulled two arrows from the tree and hurried over to her discarded vine rope. Using the tip of the arrow as a blade, she tried to cut off some of the rope. It took some time, but Alex was able to to free some pieces of the rope. Going back to her tree branch, she tried to bind some of the pieces together with her rope to make a very crude oar. It was a longshot, but she was out of options. Putting the arrows and extra rope in the boat, Alex began to push it into the water. Crossing her fingers, she hopped into on the boat.

Alex didn't know how big the swamp was, but she hoped she could reach the other side before the boat sank. Taking her oar, she tried to paddle her way through the swamp. It was slow going because the oar wasn't very good, but it was better than nothing. Alex paddled until she thought her arms would fall off. They were hunting so badly, but she pressed on. Finally, finally, she could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Alex was near the end of the swamp. She could see solid ground up ahead.