Jul 5, 2009
Scavenger Hunt and Daring Rescue on the Battenkill River
So we took our kayaks into the Battenkill River yesterday with Julie’s folks who splashed along in their canoe. The river was running high from all of the rain, meaning the shallow Battenkill was perfect for 2-hour boat trip.
We had blue skies, rushing water, and ample breeze to make it a glorious afternoon. We packed all manner of chips and candy in the canoe for a mid-way pull-off on a sunny beach or pile of pebbles in a convenient location.
The current shot us along, but overall, things plugged along swimmingly. About 30 minutes into the trip we came upon a party of about 20 teenagers who I hope were at least college age. They seemed to be having a good time, only they called out to us that we may find some bobbing beer cans downstream.
Someone had the bright idea of chilling the beer in the water.
Ha, ha. I thought. Silly teenagers.
We got a kick out of that. Then, about 20 minutes later my mother-in-law is spinning the canoe around to spy on some suspicious objects in the bushes along the side of the river. My father-in-law had to paddle really hard to make this happen. I couldn’t believe she went through so much trouble to pick up trash, but soon realized she had zeroed in on beer cans.
Seven to be exact. She found an apple too. The beer consisted of a smattering of brands, including one 24 oz Coors Light. As I bobbed around waiting, I managed to snag a can out of the river as well.
This find made us extra vigilant for anything metallic in the water. Soon I nabbed a beer can off a rock by sweeping around it, digging hard upstream, and eventually taking shelter behind the rock to pull in the can.
By the time we stopped for our snack we had eleven beer cans.
Our little rocky bit of land happened to be along a narrow stretch of river where the current picked up a great deal. While enjoying our lunch we noticed a lady in a kayak rocketing through the current. She tried to grab onto a tree hanging over the stream to wait for her husband—whom we later heard had capsized just moments before.
Hanging on to a tree in a strong, swift current is a bad idea. Trust me. She flipped over while trying to hang on to the tree. She managed to hold on to her paddle and kayak while floating down the current.
Now it seemed that she should have just floated down to a calm area and all would have been well, but instead she tried to get into her kayak. And as if demonstrating for me, onlooking kayak novice who knows next to nothing, she promptly half-sank her kayak by trying to get into it.
By this time I ran down to the bank, but she couldn’t swim over to me. Julie and her dad ran down stream and swam/walked out into a pretty swift current to pull her in and get her settled upright again.
It wasn’t a rescue in the face of death or danger, but it was certainly a rescue in the face of unpleasantness. It was a swift current that could have made a wayward kayak tough to handle. We watched her water bottle and her husband’s water bottle zip downstream from us. Soon she and her rather wet husband paddled away while we finished up our lunch
With our soaked rescuers and stash of beer cans, we eventually paddled on to the Georgi in Cambridge, NY. Upon arriving we found one of the couple’s water bottles on the rocks.
And so we not only enjoyed awesome weather in a fantastic river, we also fished out of the river eleven cans of beer, one apple, one kayaker, and one water bottle.
Not bad for a Sunday afternoon.
