I would like to find one of those! o:)
Well not floating but rather stuck in the mud during community marsh clean up. Found a Herzogthum Nassau Selters bottle from Germany originally containing mineral water. This style dates from 1850’s to late 1800’s.
Flotsam, what would you do if you found one?
Well yes and no. The most interesting I found on the river was paddling. I met wife, Qruiser, on a kayak paddle trip.
I found thebob. com once. I still haven’t recovered.
@Rookie said:
Paddled a river yesterday. Meanders through a nature preserve. Picked the wrong time, as it was a stellar sunny 77F day here. Paddling upstream back to my car, came across an assorted zoo animal flotilla of around 15 (including a beer float) led by a winged unicorn traveling backwards:
Gold wings adorned the unicorn
came backing down the river,
upon its back a mermaid slacked
her ferry to deliver,
menagerie that followed she
afloat with great inflation,
a sordid zoo one bared up to
most baffling in aeration
and I on yak stroked past this trak
attaining thought upstream,
streamed to the conscious tides sense to nonsense
whirl rings in circus dreams
As much as I would’ve liked my first post back at p.net, or,…um pardon me p.com (man that just sounds weird) to be a more positive one, I guess someone had to say it, so it might as well be me to murk the water a bit, since I seem to be destined to be in the muck anyway. (whether I like it or not)
I “found” a body. Although I didn’t realize it when I saw it. As I was paddling down stream, I noticed what looked like a bloated animal carcass deep underneath the water on the edge of the river. Since running across dead animals, are such a common part of being in nature, I really didn’t think anything of it. I just floated right past it, not giving much thought. However, a few miles down stream where I was planning to take out just above a natural rock dam in a wide deep spot, search and rescue was dragging the river. They had divers on site, as well as a dog. They asked if I’d seen, or smelled anything as it had obviously been a while since the incident had occurred. Of course I told them what I’d noticed. They told me the story of how this guy was being chased by the State Police, stopped his car on the bridge and bailed into the river. Since the water was high, fast flowing, and since the guy had bailed into the middle of the river, they said they had figured he’d be farther down stream from the bridge, and later said they thought he had lived long enough to swim to shore, then drowned. They asked if I could show them where I saw what they now suspected could be the body of the man they were looking for, and so I went with them several miles, with the dog, and divers back upstream to locate the body.
There was a part of me hoping that I was wrong, and that the guy had somehow survived the jump, “maybe that’s why the dog wasn’t detecting any scent I told myself.” However, at the same time I was also hoping that I wasn’t wasting the valuable time, and resources being spent downstream on what could be just as I originally thought, a dead animal. Unfortunately, it was the man’s body.
If I appear cold in any way about it all, understand that it has been about 20 years or so, and after spending a great deal of time in war torn countries I’ve developed a different view of life/death. As humans we tend to forget that just as animals, we are also a part of that cycle of nature. I’ve had no choice but to see, get past, and accept that. With experience, comes wisdom, thus acceptance. There are at least a couple of others here who I know for certain understand those feelings quite well. Hopefully, you all continue to find things that can be made light of.
@tssplash said:
I “found” a body.
I dread this happening to me some day. There are some things that you can’t “un-see”, and I believe this fits into that category. There are some people that deal with bodies. limbs, blood, gore… whatever on a regular basis and get desensitized to it. I’m not one of those people, and never want to be.
It sounds as though you’ve handled it well though. I can only hope that if it ever happens to me, I will be able to cope with it as well as you have.
I agree 100 % with Sparky’s eloquent comments.
Many years ago on my normal day paddling route on the Huron River in Ann Arbor I reached a point where a woman had drowned just an hour earlier and the rescue boats were just finishing up. They had flipped a rental canoe and her husband and son made it to shore. You can basically stand up and touch bottom almost anywhere on the Huron. I still wish I had gone out earlier that day.
I came across an enormous snapping turtle floating upside-down bloating in the sun. It too a few minutes to figure out what it was.
Oddly enough my wife’s cousin , the fire boat engineer , says the jumpers around here float up three days later within 100 to 200 yards of the entry point.
Jimmy Hoffa’s left ear… Carmine in ceement overshoes… Dis be Joisey, yer knows!
On a lighter note, this Spring I’m paddling down the St Joseph river at about 5-6 mph with the help of a strong current and I look over to the shore and it looks like I am not moving at all…a REALLY strange visual effect. Turns out that it’s a big tree with other plants growing on it flying downstream parallel to me. Must have been dislodged by the spring water levels; the St Joe is known to sometimes rise by 8 feet in the Spring.
you’ll find everything AND the kitchen sink on the river… North Fork Shenandoah, early Spring paddle, I presume it washed down from upriver someplace at flood stage and got hung up on a farmer’s fence line.
not really a “find” but this is the Bra Tree in the yard of some cabin on the Au Sable river in Michigan. we also found a ladies’ wig at a campsite on the same trip, freshly washed in the river, left out to dry and apparently forgotten. who wears a wig to go paddle camping???
@sapien said:
not really a “find” but this is the Bra Tree in the yard of some cabin on the Au Sable river in Michigan. we also found a ladies’ wig at a campsite on the same trip, freshly washed in the river, left out to dry and apparently forgotten. who wears a wig to go paddle camping???
That’s pretty shaky.
@sapien said:
not really a “find” but this is the Bra Tree in the yard of some cabin on the Au Sable river in Michigan. we also found a ladies’ wig at a campsite on the same trip, freshly washed in the river, left out to dry and apparently forgotten. who wears a wig to go paddle camping???
Lumberjack Larry,
came to the Bra Tree.
“Say! Ain’t that a pear?”
A pair errantly,
with many pair more,
apparent reharnessed,
as fruit of there loom.
Say! Ain’t it the darndest?
(And to think that some wood never see thy cups runneth over lovely tree. And thus it was from A to D!)
I usually try to find “myself” floating down the river. It’s a work progress so I just keep hitting the water.
A blond Barbie Doll. The toy , that is.