|
I woke up very early this morning. I'm a light sleeper, and I never sleep soundly my first night in a new place. Sleeping on our raft proved to be no exception. I found myself awake on and off from 2:00 A.M. on, listening intently for clues about the tide. Was that water lapping on the mud many feet away, or was it beginning to tickle the side of the raft? While I worked in the house to finish packing the last of the food for our trip, Arlen kept watch on the raft. At high tide, it takes effort to counter the waves that batter the raft against the rocks on shore; as the tide recedes, someone has to work at keeping the raft afloat and not allowing it to become high and dry. Dale arrived to see us off, and we were eager to get started, too. We waited, though, for the tide to turn and begin to come in. Our plan was to travel north along the river's western shore, riding the incoming tide. Finally we shoved off! Once we poled ourselves out beyond where the poles could reach bottom, we realized the tide was still heading out. Rather than try to fight it, we let ourselves drift with the tide. We would head north quickly enough when the tide turned. We drifted south, just past Eastman Point. Eastman Point has a strong eddy current on its down-current side, and we got caught in it--for at least ten large leisurely circles around. A woman and her dog appeared on the point, prepared to go swimming--clearly an established ritual they anticipated practicing with some privacy, but they accepted our intrusion graciously.
As soon as the tide turned, our raft easily popped over the eddy line and drifted north. The southerly wind, combined with the current, made our progress north swift. We used only the rudder initially--to tweak the heading of the raft. As the course of the river headed northeast, we relied more heavily on our poles. Where the river turned east, we found walking along the raft and pulling it was easiest.
Arlen took advantage of all opportunities to be wet. In the hot sun, the wind and the cool water were blessings. By mid-afternoon, I encouraged Arlen to change into dry clothes, which he finally did. By this time, we were poling the raft again, as the incoming tide had made the water too deep for wading. As the strong southern wind pushed the raft against our poles on the raft's nothern side, I warned Arlen to be careful not to find himself involuntarily catapulted off the raft and into the water. Five minutes leater, I heard a loud gasp. I turned just in time to see Arlen fly through the air and land on his face in the water. Some lessons are best learned through direct experience, I guess. The look of total surprise on Arlen's face was memorable. I could not help but laugh. He smiled some, too... eventually. So much for dry clothes. A private dock blocked our progress north, so we pulled ourselves hand-over-hand along it, and then allowed ourselves to be blown up against the southern end of the private landing on Riverside Drive. Once there, we were stuck. If we pushed ourselves out into the current, we would quickly blow into the yachts on the docks. For awhile we just hung out there, at the corner of the landing, wondering what to do. Then, a man who had been watching us from a large houseboat moored in the middle of the river, motored over to us in a small boat. He was curious about our adventure, and he felt protective of his neighbors' boats. He offered to tow us around the landing. We quickly accepted this offer, even though it was a solution that added some "unnatural" power to our efforts. The motor on the boat kept stalling--which gave us scary moments of drifting dangerously close to the yachts--but, in the end, we made it safely around the entire landing.
|
 |
 |
|
