Ever been on a canoe trip? I rode in a canoe on a very soft river/lake thing when I was young with my Grandpa and Mom. I took my first canoe float trip in 2006 and had a blast. Well, yesterday morning we decided to take a 12 mile float down Elk River (at right). Very relaxing trip, at least, the first 4 miles. I had until then been looking at fish, grabbed a box turtle, somehow managed to catch a baby water turtle, and they were running around the bottom of the canoe. We had a backpack with towels and first aid kit, etc, an ice chest with lunch and soda, and 2 life vests. Okay, so we're going along just fine, fairly cloudy, not too hot (so not thinking we're gonna swim) and the river decides to speed up.
No thing, been through fast currents before. Paddle, Paddle. Well, the funny thing about rivers, is that you can see where the current will take you. We had a choice - left, a small (but tight) bend with a big fallen tree, or right with many trees and branches and no way to make through. We chose left. We paddled hard. We were swung into the tree root system. I laughed REALLY hard.....and abruptly stopped. The canoe was tipping over. We tried to correct it, but the current was able to shove enough water into the canoe, that it dumped us back over. I hit the water panicking, and felt the current pull me beneath the water. (and shove me against the other trees laying on the other side) I used the canoe (which was pinned to the tree) to pull myself back up, and broke the surface, swallowing about a gallon of water, and unable to get my bearings. Josh pulled me up a little more, and I calmed a little, able to brace myself against the canoe, and go from there. The ice chest was floating, the back pack had been grabbed, and oars were pinned against the tree. One life vest floated away. (BTW my turtles were gone.) So, first thing get to shore, about 10 feet away. Josh headed with the backpack and I swung the ice chest toward shore, and then swam to shore myself. Since we had hit the tree, about 2 minutes had passed. Adrenaline overdose. We had to calm down because our canoe was pinned and underwater, except for about 2 inches of one of the sides. After about 5 minutes we headed back into the water. Josh held my arm, while I reached for the canoe and he tried to pull, as I pulled to get the boat out of the current. NO LUCK. The cell phone was water logged and we were 8 miles from the "take-out" spot. Oh, the river is not busy AT ALL during the early week, so no one was coming by. Well, I'm not very patient as you know, and do not like obstacles like this, so I headed back in. I circled to where the current was not strong enough to pull me back, and I could stand firm on the rocky bottom. I lifted the canoe out of the water (yeah, that's right, me. 5' 5" 118 lbs me) and semi -circled out of the current and let go. The current swept it down to a low spot and we were able to recover. Food was fine, but everthing else....SOAKED. We regained composure and headed back down the river. About a quarter of a mile, we found the life vest, and just a bit further, the box turtle. I was able to get a net at a river-side shop and caught 2 extremely small water turtles. All-in-all it was a great day, but after that we took every other curve with extreme caution, and even carried the canoe through a couple spots~
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