Listen to Yer Buds!

Alright all you ADD paddlers hear my tale and take my lesson.

LISTEN to your friends when they say there’s a hazard on the river. Then let them show you. DON’T rush off to find it yourself!



There’s a log in the Quabog at the bottom of the rapid after you go under the first RR bridge below the factory put in.

I read about it on a local board. Dan, Norm and Harland told me about it at the top of the rapid. “Stay right.” They said. “It goes across at the bottom of the island.”

So off I go. Staying right. There is some wood at the bottom of the island but nothing major. They did say it was easy to avoid if you stayed right.

Just below the island there’s a rock pile that collects wood and ice and anything else in the river. to the right of that are more rocks, mostly submerged. To the left where we usually run? Looks clear.

So I go left.

But as I get closer, to late to turn back, I see the log. Big log. From river left all the way to the rock pile. Almost submerged.

To late to stop.

Paddle like hell.

Try to go over.

Up on the log.

But not over. In slow motion the boat starts back sliding. The current turns it sideways then over.

I’m in.

And under the log.

And Clear!

So is my boat.

Swim it to shore. Change my underwear. Watch Dan show the others which way is safe.

I should have waited.

What a lucky dope I am.



Tommy

Jeeze…
put a lump in my throat. Having experienced it once, hearing about going through, under, over wood in current just scares the crap out of me. Give me a trashing 6’ plus waves any day. I know I am more likely survive the latter.



sing


That’s true 99.9% of the time
I have a old buddy I haven’t paddled with in years and the running joke with him was, if he said stay left, you were probably better off going right. He was a good CL-IV paddler but had a crappy memory of the proper route on alot of rivers. It was alway’s fun to watch the new guy’s follow him and take his directions and get hammered. (happened to me once too).

So be carefull if you ever run into the Rev. Lou, although I hear he now goes by the moniker Old School Lou, somewhere up in the northern ‘Kingdom’ in Vt. He’ll lead you down the road of ill repute and steal your WW virginity too!

And Tommy, really glad you washed through, and did you wash-out your shorts? Because I’da crapped too! I’ve only gone ‘log-rolling’ once in my life and that’s once too many, eh?

Sheesh Tom, a call too close!
That sounds downright scary.

Glad you made it out the other side. Gives me the heebees just thinking about it.

Sobering post

Good thing you were discharged Tom.
I can’t imagine anyone else wearing those Bermudas in Crayola-64 with as much aplomb as yourself!



Rivers always seem to have something well-hidden to sneak up on you. But they never tell lies, only secrets. Guess your paddling colleagues, if anything like mine, are a lot like rivers.



Glad you and the secret are out!



Tom

glad you flushed Tom

– Last Updated: Nov-28-06 1:56 PM EST –

That's a scary image.

I've gone the whole year without a "confidence check", and that's not a good thing. No doubt it's because I haven't gotten much creek time in. (It was a very dry spring and summer western NY).

Glad nothing hung you up under there. And, thanks for posting about it.

Confidence Check
Clarion, I thought your check was at Raystown and the encounter with the “BIG BOAT”. :wink: Naw, not quite as hairy as Tom’s flush. Geez Tom, looks like ya gotta paddle with a chainsaw! Glad it all turned out well!



dougd

If I were a little smarter then maybe
But, as it is I’m too dumb for that to have any real impact. But, I did post a “note to self” reminding me not to drink scotch out of a Nalgene bottle anymore.

Sobering story
Clarion, listen up!


Tommy’s was a sobering story indeed
Are we talking about the same thing or are you misinterpreting stuff because you are now going on 25 hours without paddling?


Both!
Double entendre!

Jeez, I think I know that rapid
There’s been trees in it a few times. Last time I was there, a tree was across the right channel at the base of the broken dam…one guy ran it and got pinned. He was flipped and flushed under and somehow he came out the other side. He’s stupid lucky like that.



Last year, on the Willimantic, while trying to reach a clear channel, my buddy got swept up against a log. He was initially stable, but very quicky his upstream gunwhale got sucked under…he stood up to climb onto the tree, but the current was so strong he got sucked down too (river was in flood). Somehow both he and the canoe (a 17 foot Old Town) flushed through what looked to me to be a forest of trees in the river.



For an encore he got flushed backward over a small lowhead dam, cleanly.



Old boaters never die…