E-mailed a description of just such an adventure a year ago⌠cost me a Tracfone but I like the upgrade.
Yesterday was pretty much as nice as it gets here in February. The sun was out for the first time in 2 weeks and temps were in the 40s. Perfect day to go kayaking; I even ran across another kayaker and two canoes on the trip. I paddled up stream from our back yard past the beaver devastation area and did the usual pit stop at a x country ski warmup station in the Metropark.
Blocks of ice floating in the river werenât melting very fast.
This winter Iâve always been stopped by trees that have fallen all the way across the river when I paddle upstream. Either the water is too high to get under something or too low to go over or around something (thereâs a lot of flood plane detours available). Iâm not willing to get out of the boat in the mud when its this cold. Well, yesterday the levels were mamma bear just right; I was able to go to Canoe Camp #1 in Island Lake. 10+ miles according to my dearly departed phoneâs tracking appâŚ
Unfortunately, I was pretty lazy. I have a waterproof cell phone case but I didnât use it. After all, I havenât dumped a kayak in something like 40 years. The first tree that blocks me going upstream is about 5 miles up. A fallen tree with a tip-up (where the tree roots pull the ground up into a disk about 10 feet high) on the flood plane side features an 8 inch trunk a couple of feet off the water going all the way to the right bank, which rises steeply about 5 feet out of the river. Going upstream I was able to paddle around it thru the tip-upâs hole on the left by following just the right twisty-turny route thru the timber, bushes and trunks that decorate floodplains. But I was looking at it and thinking âgee, the water is low enough that I could probably duck under that trunk on the right bank on the way back.â
So on the way back I took the short cut under the trunk. My height estimation was wrong. My head scraped the trunk, peeling off my hat, and then my shoulders hit and I pinned against the trunk with the current behind me and my face planted on the foredeck. I spent about one second thinking how badly I just screwed up before I was standing in shahockingly cold waist deep ice water, soaked from head to foot, next to the overturned kayak. Grabbed my glasses, hat, loose stuff from the cockpit and paddle, stowed wet things under the deck lashings so I could get my hands back, and walked the boat to a spot about 20 feet down stream where a tree and bushes would keep it from going sideways. Because of the bulkheads the cockpit only had a few inches of water in it and I was able to lift it up and empty it. Thatâs when the shivers set in.
The day hatch compartment had my hooded fleece and gloves, dry. I took off the PFD and pulled out the fleece, at which point I apparently lost a glove, and put the PFD back on over that. Managed to get back in without any further mistakes and started paddling as hard as I could the 5 miles back home. After five minutes the shivers stopped and I decided I was going to make it after all. Prior to that I was feeling pretty exhausted but somehow I was now full of energy. For some reason I was thinking âhow interesting that Iâm reacting this wayâ. Adrenaline.
By the time I got home my shirt was dry (polyester!) but my feet and legs were not. And I had been pretty brutal on my hands on the race home, Iâm counting four blisters. Permanent damage is my lost glove and my $100 Tracfone. Iâve ordered a new one, a Galaxy S7 which is supposed to be waterproof.
Slept really well last night! Weather is nice again today, maybe Iâll go for a bike ride.