Mine both involve canoeing while water in the Raccoon River was high, yet still below the banks.


1) From a distance, the bridge looked like it was a long ways above the water. As we neared, I asked my buddy in the stearn, and the guys in the canoe paralleling us if they thought the bridge was a little close to the the water. We were moving towards it fast. About the time that they all said that it was high enough, I had gripped the gunnels, raised myself from the bow seat, and flopped into the bottom of the canoe. They had started to chide me for my cowardness when in mid sentece they all decided that the floor of the canoes was the place to be.
We missed that bridge girder by only two or three inches. A tip- An object that is above the water looks twice as high as it is (due to the mirror effect of the water.)
Had we hit the bridge we would have been in a life threatening situation. The Springtime water was fast and cold.

2) A few years later, my buddy again in the stearn, we were alone. The water was not quite as high but it was up and fast.

My friend had done a lot of open canoe racing and liked to go downstream hugging the high bank where the current gives you the most boost in speed. We had just pulled into the outside of a bend, where the high side is, and had remarked on how fast the water had become. We called it hard water because the canoe had not caught up to the speed of it yet and we could feel the force against the paddles pushing us forward.

Right at this time a section of the bank, over ten feet high, and nearly as thick, 30 feet or so long, caved off and into the water just in front of us. Had we been 30 feet farther downstream we would have died. As it was, my lap go wet in the bow as the sunami wave crested the front of the canoe. We have stopped hugging those dirt banks since then.


Bob