Home again

I returned home from my little six-day trip to North Carolina last month on the day after my college friend and host Jimmy and I went to tour Southport, a seaside town near where his girlfriend lives on Oak Island and where Jimmy has contemplated moving to.  On the day I left I got up before dawn and made the 363 mile drive in good time, arriving back home early in the afternoon.

It was an eventful trip, despite the three days that involved travel, during which I saw my closest cousin, visited with my university buddy, and we toured three North Carolina towns looking for houses he might inquire about to buy.  We partook in local food, especially seafood, local beer, and paid our respects to a vanishing breed by attending the burial services of a World War II veteran.

My favorite parts among many were getting up early every day to take pictures of sunrise, touring seaports especially Oriental and Southport, relaxing in Jimmy's house on stilts on the water as darkness descended and the bustle of the day calmed down, and making calls to friends from college to start planning our 50th-year reunion of our arrival as teenage newbies at our college co-ed dorm.  The worst part of the trip was driving through the tunnel under Hampton Roads from Hampton to Newport News which was dark, narrow and long, and bothered me because its low light environment affected my vision so soon after my eye surgery of a few weeks before.

The trip stirred up memories of yore, for shore.  Seeing people again whom I have known for decades and who were such an integral part of my life in the past was good and, in one instance, cathartic.

A visit to the firehouse.

My friend Jimmy and I had a great time in  Southport, NC, where we went to to get a feel for the town and look at houses as we walked and drove around because Jimmy is looking to move to a livelier coastal town.  Because Jimmy was a volunteer fireman previously in his current town of Vandemere, upon arrival in town we presented ourselves at the firehouse, and were treated to a tour of the station by Red.

We saw all of its shiny fire engines.  The place even has a fireman's pole, but we couldn't slide down it because training is required before a person is authorized to use it.

We peeked in on the fire chief, and were shown the bunking quarters, the kitchen, dining area, recreational space and weight room.  Out back was a tall tower which was a training confined area with several flights of stairs (think of the hundreds of heroes clomping up the stairs of the WTC on the morning of 9/11/01 as everyone else fled down those stairs).

Afterwards we enjoyed touring charming Southport, a true tourist mecca, by foot and car.  While driving around gawking at the stately (but crumbling) restored southern houses there, I swear I fleetingly saw someone I thought I once knew on the sidewalk.  Small world.

A veteran is laid to rest.

On the fourth day of my trip I arose at the crack of dawn and went to Vandemere's waterfront to capture my sunrise picture.  Then I spoke with a local, Max, who had built a very unusual hurricane-proof house on the waterfront using waterproof fiberboard panels secured to the structure's steel skeleton comprising of a central embedded spine with overhead and deck-level girders emanating out like the spokes of a wheel to create a raised, round house that proved to be impervious to Hurricane Florence, which caused extensive damage to the town's low-lying buildings otherwise.  The roof is of  flat and made of waterproof fiberboard so it is leakproof and doesn't require additional covering and a mostly round house does well in high winds.

Max, an engineer, knows Jimmy well, and graciously explained the house's construction to me and gave me a tour of his new-age home.  I returned to Jimmy's house in time to accompany him on a drive to Cary where a World War Two veteran, the father of a friend of his, was being laid to rest with full military honors.  John Welsey Dickens was a sailor on a destroyer who was present in Tokyo Bay when Japan surrendered, having survived a typhoon at sea six months earlier called Halsey's Hurricane which capsized and sank three other destroyers and caused great damage to the fleet.

The memorial for this hero, who carved out a successful and prosperous post-war life in NC, was moving and his graveside service was very poignant, with a navy bugler playing taps as the US flag covering the coffin was folded up and presented to the family.  Jimmy's friend wept quietly, overcome with grief during this somber ceremony at the passing of her father.  Cary proved to be a nice little inland town, as Jimmy and I discovered walking around before the memorial, looking at houses.

My favorite part of Cary's small downtown, besides its stately pre-war theatre-turned-movie-house, was its paean to the free press, embodied in a statue of a newsboy hawking newspapers on a street corner.  After the interment, we returned to Vandemere and enjoyed a special bottle of season's ale, a Christmas gift to me from a friend of mine with whom I had spent Christmas day at her house.  Jimmy and I made plans for the morrow, and we decided to visit another seaport to look at houses there, a town where Jimmy had spent many a delightful day being with his friend so recently aggrieved by the loss of her father, as she lived in a nearby community.

Looking for a House on the NC Coast

After I drove to Jimmy's house, my college roommate at CU oh so many years ago, in NC for a short stay, we talked about the benefits of living in NC, as he does as a federal retiree, as I am.  He expressed a wish to move to a more populous seaport town in the state, and he was very persuasive in  his exposition as he explained it to me on the evening I arrived.

The next morning I arose early and went out at sunrise to try to catch a sunup shot across the water to the east, as Jimmy lives on the water on the coast.  I went to the town boat launch and shot pictures of the rising sun from the park there.

I have sometimes thought of moving out of the DC area myself, as my property taxes kill me (about $9K per year, not counting my car tax, the cost of the town sticker for my windshield and the surface impermeability tax on my lot), and the faux president has punished the true Americans in the Northeast who didn't vote for him by not allowing local taxes to be deducted anymore in his tax giveaway to the ultra-rich, so I happily accompanied Jimmy on his house shopping quest in the next few days with a thought that perhaps I would find a good situation for myself too.  But first we went to a local restaurant in nearby Bayboro for breakfast to an establishment where he hadn't been in years, Charlie's, to indulge in good old North Carolina home cooking.

Our hunger more than satisfied, we toured a nearby seaport town where we looked at some good real estate deals.  After visiting that town's local microbrewery, we enjoyed some fried local seafood for dinner back at his place and had late night phone conversations with former college dormitory roommates about attending the 50th year reunion next year of the first coed dormitory at that university.

Passing Through Newport News

Day 2 of my trip to North Carolina earlier this month dawned overcast but my cousin and I went out for an early morning walk on Buckroe Beach, which her condominium unit overlooks.  We brought her three-legged pet Gabe, who lost a hind leg as a puppy in an encounter with a car but who gets around just fine as an adult dog.

The beach has a center square with a pavilion which serves as a sort of dog park where neighbors can meet.  There's a sign in the common area there which warns that there might be live ordnance buried on the beach, dumped there by mistake by the Army years ago after dredging operations offshore on a firing range a mile or so out to sea that was active during the war.
I left in mid-morning to drive to Vandemere, the tiny town on the North Carolina mainland coast where my college roommate lives in a hurricane-resistant house on stilts, driving through the tunnel to Newport News in Virginia to take rural backroads through rustic North Carolina.   Along the way I drove past gas stations advertising gas under $2 per gallon, the first time I have seen gas so low since the last administration.

Arriving at Jimmy's place mid-afternoon, we relaxed on his porch, overlooking his riverfront view past his former dock ruined by hurricane Florence, and then enjoyed a spaghetti and sausage dinner and called some college friends out west as the evening wore on.  We made plans to visit several North Carolina towns in the next few days as Jimmy is contemplating moving to a larger town someday and, who knows, I like picturesque seacoast North Carolina too, where federal retirees get beneficial tax benefits.

The Eight-Miler

Last Saturday I met John at 7:30 a.m. at Bluemont on the W&OD Trail to run 8 miles before I drove down to NC to visit a friend who was impacted by the visit of Hurricane Irene a week earlier. Eight miles was the longest either John or I had run in two years.

John was bothered by a hip injury he's been dealing with so we ran slowly, enjoying the time we were out there. We set out westbound on the trail so that we could do the last half downhill after we turned around.

The local high school was conducting its first cross country training run so a steady progression of skinny young runners ran by opposing us and then shortly, they all overtook us and passed us from behind. We passed a few of them back because we'd catch up with them at street crossings where they were patiently waiting for the green light and we'd run the red and get ahead for a short while.

We turned around at the 42 minute mark and ran a negative split of 40 minutes coming back. Afterwards I stopped in at the INOVA Health Center in Merrifield to give my 89th blood donation lifetime before tackling the seven hour drive to NC.

Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene was an annoyance in DC the weekend before last, the source of much rain and wind, lots of hours spent watching the weather channel and the subject of plans for hurricane parties. I called up a friend in the District to tell her that I was out of milk and ask her what should I do (I never drink milk) and to see if she thought 4 rolls of toilet paper would be enough to get me past Irene's passage.

But I have another friend for whom it was not a funny joke. He lives in Vandemere, NC, on the edge of the water, and Pamlico County, where tiny Vandemere is (it's near Oriental, NC) was the hardest hit county in this top-ten disaster storm.

Hurricane Isabel in 2003 was popularly known to be the storm of the century down here because of the unprecedented devastation it inflicted when it came ashore, he explained to me, but the storm surge when Irene came ashore in the region was higher than Isabel's. By two and a half feet.

My friend estimates Vandemere has 120 houses, and that probably 80 of them were breached by seawater. Houses in town were flooded that never took in water before, not even during Isabel. My friend's house is on stilts and the water came to within two feet of invading his floorboards.

As usual during hurricanes, townsfolk parked their cars at the firehouse, which had always remained dry in every storm. All the cars were flooded with seawater up to their dashboards and totaled.

His house high atop its stilts became like a stationary ark on storm-tossed seas, with the ocean rolling around just under it and waves lashing the pilings. The thick trunks of the trees in his yard emerged from the wind-whipped waters and rode out the storm alongside the house.

I came down this past weekend to help my friend clean up because he lost everything he had stored in his outer buildings, which constituted many of his lifelong treasures like old books, his parents' furniture, photographs and old construction-paper cards to him from his school-age children on special occasions. He sadly explained that he thought they were all stored on shelves high enough to remain dry even during the worst storm, as we surveyed the sodden mess. For the past two days while he carefully separates stuck-together pages of photo albums which have recorded his life hoping to salvage ruined remembrances, I plow through the treasures-turned-trash and dump most of them in garbage bags.

In town the scenes of disaster are worse as practically every house has mountainous piles of water-stained mattresses, warped wood, ruined carpeting, soggy insulation and waterlogged furniture heaped on the curb. But everyone down here is working at recovery, thankful for what remains rather than despondent over what's lost, and the spirit imbuing this town is indomitable.

Another Ride Down A Rapids Without A Boat

Our third annual Bucket Trip was the gift that kept giving, the trip from hell. The adventures kept coming at us non-stop and they weren't through yet.

On the afternoon of the third day of our trip down the Dolores River in Utah on three rafts with 10 persons, Jy had skippered our boat into a huge standing rock in the middle of a rapids and it had flipped over. After a harrowing escape from underneath the boat, I had gone on a wild ride down the rapids to the bottom.

After I shakily pulled myself out of the river, I had gone back upriver to see if I could help out with our capsized boat. I hadn't seen Jy or G, the other man in our boat, since I had been dumped unceremoniously into the frigid water.

I hoped they were both alright.

Well, they were, more or less, at least for now. When I arrived on the bank across twenty feet of torrential rapids from where the rock was, the scene was shocking.

The overturned raft was being held fast by the current against the rock we had crashed into. Jy and G were out of the water pressed against the rock themselves, standing atop the higher pontoon of the boat, shoving against it with their legs trying to get it to move off the rock.

Forty feet behind them was our largest boat, tilted precariously in the river, hung up on rocks in the rapids while its three occupants scrambled about the boat deck and stepped into the seething water which was pouring over the barely submerged river rocks in their attempts to free it. Just like our capsized boat, it was stuck tight.

On the bank with me were the last four members of our trip, both couples that had been in the 4-person paddle boat. When its captain, T, had heard the approaching rapids, he had judiciously put in on shore to scout it on foot before embarking down it.

We watched helplessly while the five persons in the river worked frenetically to free their boats. There was no getting out to them, the river was too deep and the current too strong.

The two women on shore, Ju and A, accompanied by B, went downriver on foot to try to collect anything that might break free from the boats. This is called recovery, not rescue.

We all hoped it wouldn't be bodies.

After many long minutes, perhaps a quarter of an hour, G and Jy had made some progress in shifting the position of their boat. It moved downstream ever so slightly while they shoved against it while keeping their backs pressed against the vertical wall face of the standing rock they were leaning against.

Suddenly the current caught the boat and it broke free of the rock. With a shout, Jy and G scampered about trying to scramble onto the raft before it left them on the rock in the middle of the rapids.

This proved to be impossible because it was still upside down. Down the rapids it went, sunny side down, sucked down the same vortex that I had been sucked into when I got out from under the boat.

It left its crew behind as it disappeared from sight.

G, being an experienced river man, crawled higher on the tall rock where its angle was less severe and gained his feet. He climbed to the top of the twenty-foot rock and looked off downstream at his disappearing boat.

Jy, not being used to such things, was clinging to the rock face with his river shoes barely out of the water. He pressed his belly against the smooth granite, his fingers dug into a couple of slight crevices.

"G, help me, I can't get up the rock!" he called out. G kept watching his boat. Behind them, the crew of the other stuck boat were oblivious to the drama on the rock as they frantically worked in their own little island of chaos to free their boat.

Down river, A was having her own adventures, which involved going into the river to its midway point. Her status as a Boston Marathon Qualifier enabled her to save our trip from further, possibly irreparable, disaster.

Jy was aware of my presence on the bank opposite him. He had been visibly relieved, as had G, when I had showed up, because it meant that I hadn't been killed or severely injured. Jy also now had proof that a passage down the rapids was survivable.

"G, I can't climb this cliff! I'm going to swim down the rapids. Do you think I should?" Jy had a life jacket on, as did we all.

G grunted. Life on the river is tough.

He was clearly worried about the boat, which was his possession and contained all our stuff. Jy slid backwards into the raging river and was gone down the rapids in a flash!

Jy was on his own now. There were persons down below who could possibly help him if and when he emerged from the rapids.

Did I already say that life on the river is tough? (Left: Jy disappears down the rapids on a lonely ride. Good luck, buddy!)

I hadn't read the trip brochure closely enough before I came on this trip. At the last second, I almost gave in to my vague unease about it and went off to Custer's Battlefield instead. Talk about last stands. Look at them all! Don't let any escape!

Jy had vanished down the rapids. G was atop a standing rock in the rapids, twenty feet from safety across a rampaging channel of churning, frothy water.

J and his crew were caught in the rapids in the middle of the river. They had already lost their spare oar the day before when their boat got stuck at Stateline Rapids, the supposed "tough" rapids on this trip.

Unbeknownst to me, A was diving into the river at about that moment down below after a long run in pursuit of one of the paddles from G's boat. This trip was five days on a remote section of river, devoid of serviceable roads nearby and without cell phone service, and every oar was precious.

My boat, with all of its baggage, had floated away downriver upside down and was out of sight. The only possessions I had left were the soaked clothes I had on.

I had almost been drowned under the boat and then killed in the rapids.

There was the paddle boat upstream, our smallest boat, which still had to make it past the rapids.

Night would come soon enough, with its 40 degree chill.

A Wild Ride Down A Rapids Without A Boat

Disaster overtook our rafting trip on the remote Dolores River in Utah during the third day when the boat I was in ran into a huge jutting rock in the middle of No-Name Rapids and flipped over. I was trapped under the boat but escaped when my desperate dive into the underwater current carried me out behind the boat beyond the rock.

When I came up, I greedily sucked in a mouthful of air just as a cascading wall of foaming water poured over my head and drove me below the surface again. I was swept away down a long rocky chute by this torrential deluge of water rushing past the boulder which the capsized boat was pinned against. When my life jacket brought me to the surface again everything was a blur as, engulfed in tumbling, crashing water, I flashed by partially submerged boulders on both sides.

When I was underneath the boat I thought I was going to die, now that I was back on the surface I thought I might live. Although I was in desperate straits as the rushing current propelled me down the rapids at a reckless speed, at least I could breathe again so long as I didn’t get hung up on a rock and become trapped underwater again.

I plunged downstream past impediments marked by water boiling over their surfaces. I recall thinking that I had to save myself now, because my surviving this solo trip down the rapids was the best thing I could do now to help the two crew members I was leaving behind.

I know what you are supposed to do if you get thrown into a rapids. Get on your back, point your legs downstream and use your feet to fend off any rocks that you encounter. You have to trust your life jacket to save you and watch out that you don’t smash your head on any rocks.

I fought to bring my feet underneath me and point them downstream as I rolled over onto my back. I had never been in an element with this kind of power and omnipotent force before.

I was too upright in the roiling water and fighting the current too hard with my arms and this caused me to suck in water and start to cough. I forced myself to relax and lay back fully as I hurtled downstream. Clasping my hands across my vest and tucking my arms in tightly, I raised my head slightly and focused on looking down the length of my body to watch for approaching hazards.

Below me, water gushed around an obstacle just below the surface and I used my feet to skip over a submerged rock as I roared over it. Ahead of me, the current was taking me directly into a huge boulder standing upright in the river just like the rock which our boat had crashed into. I kicked mightily the instant I struck this towering edifice and careened off of it down river again.

Down I sped amidst the swollen eddies and crashing pinwheels of water for maybe a quarter of a mile. Suddenly I was discharged from this rockbound channel into calmer waters below.

As the gentler current of the river took over for the congested, frenetic rush of the rapids, I rolled over and did a slow sidestroke to the left bank. Grabbing at willow saplings on the shore as I passed by them, my quaking muscles barely allowed me to hoist myself onto dry land. I had survived.

I stood up and checked myself over while my chest heaved from exhaustion. Although wet, cold and bedraggled, I was uninjured.

I was by myself, almost half a mile below where I’d gone into the river. I hurried upstream along the bank to alert my other crew members that I was okay.

Above me were a capsized boat and two persons probably in need of assistance. It turned out that their situation was indeed desperate. (Right: My overturned boat trapped against the rock by the current. After being dumped into the water by the boat's sudden capsizing, I "came up" underneath the boat in the passenger well just past where the end of the red-tipped oar is barely sticking out from under the boat. There was no "air pocket" down there. After two futile attempts to get out from under the boat on the "upriver" side, I dove down below the boat in desperation and the strong current swept me out behind the back of the boat, where the lashed luggage is visible in the water, and sucked me down the rapids. Notice the other stuck boat behind our boat.)

I didn’t know that a second boat was caught in the middle of the rapids as well.

In the blink of an eye...

Stateline Rapids, the three-quarter mile long robust Class IV+ rapids with its mandatory scout on both banks and its dangerously low water flow, was behind us. It had almost claimed our biggest boat but we were past it now and the guidebook promised us smooth sailing for the rest of the trip. (Right: After G skippered the 4-person paddle boat down the lower Stateline Rapids on the third morning, we thought we were home free.)

We were ready for a little relaxation. The hump past the impassable diversion dam the first day of the river trip and the drama that consumed the second day and the morning of the third day at the diabolical rapids had sapped our spirit of adventure and we were all looking forward to smooth, unruffled sailing down a gentle, sun-dappled river in the last half of the trip.

The weather was cooperating as the sky continued to be brilliantly blue and cloud-free, promising us no rain. The days were sunny and warm and the nights were cold but clear, affording anyone who looked up a spectacular display of stars.

We sipped an occasional beer and lounged on the boats as they moved lazily downriver at a leisurely pace. We reminesced about the good old times when we were freshmen and oh-so young in coed Sewell Hall at the University of Colorado in Boulder forty years ago.

Jy, who knew as little about oaring a boat down the remote, fast-moving Dolores River as I did, took over the helm from G, to give him a much appreciated break. We bounced our way down one small rapids with Jy at the oars, a fun little escapade of the boat first being pushed (better visibility) and then pulled (more power and control but you're going backwards) by Jy's oars as the current caught us and spun us around, We all laughed and carefully pointed out hidden rocks to the busy driver.

After a lunch of sandwiches on the bank of the river, Jy continued to row and we heard the increasing noise of another approaching rapids. Its entrance looked all right, with not too much water in turmoil down there, so we sailed on into it without scouting it out first.

We immediately got into trouble. Once we were sucked into the vortex of the thing, the inexperienced Jy pretty much lost control of the boat. Looming in our path was a big standing rock in the river which Jy narrowly missed crashing into as G yelled directions at him. The current spun us around backwards and we traversed alongside a line of barely submerged rocks across the stream while approaching another tall, broad free standing rock behind us.

G screamed, "Jy, don't hit that rock!" Easier said than done in the powerful rushing water. Now we were right next to the towering rock going backwards and the current pushed us right into it broadside.

Things happened in the blink of an eye next. The wall of water seeking a way downstream slammed us sideways into the rock. I was on the upstream side of the boat with G on the seat next to me and Jy behind me. The downstream side of the boat rode slightly up the broad face of the rock as the current tried to shove us downstream. This caused a torrent of water to immediately start flooding into my side of the boat which had been lowered ever so slightly by the dynamics of being pinned against the rock. The frigid river water cascaded into the raft with shocking swiftness.

In these circumstances everyone should climb onto the high (rising) side of the boat so that the added weight will bring that side back down and raise the lowered side. It was a maneuver we had never practised and for which there was absolutely no time now.

I thought, "Hey, the river is pouring in... ." In a flash the boat flipped over.

I was in the water fighting against the terrific current to rise to the surface. I had my life jacket on, which gave me buoyancy.

I rose in the water but never made it to the surface. I "came up" in a cold, dark watery place, underneath the overturned boat.

It was quiet under there but there was definitely no air pocket down there. I could feel the fury of the current all around my body, driving me back towards the rock face behind me.

I remember thinking that I had about one minute to get out from under this boat or I was going to die. I could feel the clock ticking.

The very death I had feared most, death by drowning, which was the very reason for my unease over this Bucket Trip in the first place, the overwhelming fear I thought I had defeated by travelling down Stateline Rapids, was confronting me. My 58 years had brought me to this one spot under the boat on this "insignificant" rapids in Utah and now I thought I was going to die alone, right here and right now.

I was determined to try to live though. I grabbed onto some rigging and clawed my way across the underside of the boat against the current to try to emerge from under the boat on the upstream side. I didn't want to be pushed back against the rock face behind me and get pinned there by the mighty water flow.

When I got to the air-filled bulbous rubber pontoon which encircles the boat, there was nothing to grab onto and the rushing current pushed me back. I tried again with the same result.

I was acutely aware of my single lungful of air. I figured that having failed twice at my efforts to escape, I had time for one more attempt at salvation before I blacked out. I felt myself weakening.

A rule on the river for anyone in the water is to stay with the boat. Besides the obvious risk of drowning, the water is dangerous because you can crash into all kinds of things while being propelled by the current.

It was time to leave the boat if I could, despite my fear of getting pinned underwater against the rock behind me. Holding fast to the rigging under the boat, I pushed off downwards and backwards into the current.

A moment later I popped out to the surface behind the boat, into light and air but in the midst of a raging torrent of cascading water. I grabbed a mouthful of air and was immediately thrust under the surface again by the force of the water. Now thoughts of death were replaced in my mind by thoughts of survival as I hurtled down a very powerful, rock-strewn quarter mile of rapids at warp speed.

Stateline Rapids, the next morning

We woke up on the 3d day of our Colorado Dolores River Bucket Trip the next morning with a new determination. We ate breakfast, and made lunch sandwiches, and everyone was raring to go.

The 2 boatmen and T and B took the paddle boat down the lower Stateline Rapids with no problems. The 2 women on that boat walked.

C, always game, wanted to ride an oar boat down the lower rapids. The boatmen, returning from downriver to take their oar boats the rest of the way down Stateline Rapids, wanted only men for crew, because men are stronger and unafraid to act.

That's just the way it is in remote Utah (we'd crossed the stateline) where miscues on the river can cost you your life. The two boatmen, having faced danger in the middle of the rapids the day before, could assert their will. (Jy and G bring our boat through the lower Stateline Rapids. Photo by B.)

My boat left under G's guidance with G oaring and Jy paddling. G chose a good line down the lower rapids and made it through without incident.

J allowed C to ride with us through the dangerous rapids, although only I had a paddle to help him as he oared. It's the strength thing, although C apparently has no fear of danger. And there was a woman walking down the rapids from T's boat who would put all us manly men to shame in a pinch, as you'll see. Did I already tell you that A qualified for Boston?

I'm glad C was in the boat because it was a rough ride through the lower rapids and at one point, as I bounced around the boat as we jostled over rocks and spun around In the current, I was knocked into her and she righted me so I could stick my paddle into the water again and help J out some more.

So now the Stateline Rapids was (were?) behind us. We were home free! (Left: Home Free! Oh really? Photo by B.)

Really? Four hours later I was alone in a cold, dark place contemplating my maker.

Dolores River Trip, Stateline Rapids

It was mid-afternoon of the second day of our 37 mile, five-day rafting trip down the remote Dolores River in Colorado, we had gone 9 miles so far, and trouble was definitely upon us. Our two most experienced boatmen were currently under extreme duress in the river and our largest boat was stuck, hung up on a rock and pressed into immobility there by the powerful current, in the middle of raging Stateline Rapids. (Right: Houston we have a problem. Photo by B.)

The two boatmen, J and G, and I had brought the smallest boat down part of the rapids to a portage point a half hour earlier. Buoyed by this success at navigating the ferocious Stateline Rapids, Jy offered to accompany G and J when they took the second of our three boats down the rapids.

I would be the third crew member on the last trip, as one other man was all the crew that G and J wanted to accompany them on the oar boats when they traversed the dangerous rapids. The seven of us landlubber crew members lined the shore alongside the upper rapids and watched as J brought his boat down.

We all shouted and gave a hurrah as the heavily-laden raft came shooting down the rapids. Jy and G were paddling for all they were worth up front and J was rowing furiously from the back with his long oars.

Round and round the boat spun as the flat rubber bottom struck submerged rocks and forged over them. Waves of spray from the roiling water broke over the boat.

Then our huzzahs died away as the boat spun into a little maelstrom of swirling water and got hung up and pinned on a rock in the middle of the upper channel. With the river current roaring past on both sides, the boat turned broadside and was held fast against a large rock outcropping while water poured into the upriver side of the boat. J’s oars were useless in this tight space and the little paddles were ineffective.

All hell broke loose on the boat. G climbed onto the slippery rock and started working the boat back and forth with his hands and feet, pushing and shoving. I was dearly afraid for him, worried that the heavy boat might slip a little and pin him between the boat and the rock. He could drown in those circumstances. (Left: The 3 boatmen worked desperately in the middle of the raging river. Photo by B).

Jy started bailing furiously with a 5-gallon water bucket. As G clambered about the partially submerged rock, Jy dashed him full in the face with a bucketful of cold river water as he desperately sought to keep the boat from filling with water. It would have been funny to us observers if the situation wasn’t so deadly serious.

J pulled on his oars and tried to get leverage to turn the boat in the confined space. The raft was hemmed in by rocks and held fast by the powerful current. He snagged an oar on a rock and it was wrenched from his hand and went downstream. We never saw it again.

We stood on the shore gaping at the spectacle, unable to help them in the least. The current was too powerful for anyone to wade out to them and it was too far to throw a rope. The three men were on their own.

Seconds turned into minutes and then a quarter hour passed, then half an hour. The current was holding them fast. At times, all three crew members were on the slimy rock in the raging river, pushing on the boat. It seemed to be moving slightly.

T tried to wade out towards them but it was too dangerous. The third boat was still upstream and could be used to assist them but it was likely that it would just sweep on by. If it got caught in the same place it would just add more dimension to the disaster.

The boat had stopped taking in water though, so the situation seemed to be improving. The sum knowledge of what to do was already out there with J and G, the two boatmen who had vast experience on rivers. The rest of us were helpless spectators, reduced to wringing our hands in an agony of inaction. We sat down to watch the three men work in the middle of the river, hoping that none would slip and get swept away by the rapids.

T was ready to put the paddle boat in the river if that happened, I am sure, and I would have gone with him in any rescue attempt. Half of that boat’s paddles were with the oar boat, though. There was no prospect of rowing upstream to their assistance.

Finally, after about forty minutes, the large boat slowly swung about and started moving again. There was great consternation on the rock as all three men scrambled to get situated in the boat before it broke free. Suddenly the boat went plunging down the rapids again with all three men paddling furiously.

J did a masterful job of steering with one oar and suddenly they were free of the upper part of the rapids, in a small, relatively calm part of water that separated the upper and lower parts. They paddled to a small beach, where we met them. The men were cold, wet and clearly exhausted. (Right: Free. Free at last. Photo by B.)

The boat seemed to be alright, and J was for taking it the rest of the way down the rapids and continuing on once we portaged the first boat downriver and brought the third boat down. He wanted to put Stateline behind us before nightfall.

T pressed the contrary point, suggesting that we camp right there and tackle the lower rapids on the morrow, after bringing the third boat down to this beach, of course. J acquiesced to this and J, G and I trudged upriver to the third boat to bring it down.

Watching the large boat get hung up in the middle of the rapids had scared the crap out of me. But what are you gonna do? J and G were tired and needed help and if the next boat got stuck, I could be a strong pair of helping, albeit untutored, hands. I trusted G to bring his boat down safely as he said he could and would.

And G did just that. We shoved off and J and I paddled for all we were worth while G steered and pulled with his two oars. We had an "uneventful" trip. There was plenty of water that crashed over the bow and we scraped over many rocks and swirled around a couple of times but we made it down clean. Although G looked cool in his helmsman’s chair, he cursed like a salty sailor the whole trip down. I remember being tossed around a lot. (Left: G guides us down the upper rapids to the campsite. Photo by B.)

By the time we landed, the landlubbers had portaged the smallest boat to the beach and we set up camp. We cooked spaghetti for dinner and slept away from the river by the gently babbling diversion stream. My perennially sore ankle was hurting from the day's exertion and the shallow chute of frigid flowing river water provided a perfect ice bath to dip my injured foot into.

Tomorrow we still had to pass though the lower half of Stateline Rapids, a dangerous task in itself. After that, though, the way would be in the clear with nothing further downstream but a couple of gentle rapids, we thought.

That wishful thought would instill in us a sense of complacency that almost had a fatal result the following day.

How to Cook Salmon

Earlier this month I spent a week sailing the Florida Keys with 14 of my college friends or their S.O.s. in three boats. Two were 32 footers and the one I was on was 25 feet. Three persons in the group knew how to sail, one captain for each boat. There were two couples and myself on my boat, which was captained by Jimmy, my freshman roommate in Sewell Hall at CU in 1970.

(Right: Sunset in the Florida Keys.) Each boat had a low-powered diesel engine that would enable the boat to go about three knots. As a point of reference, in seven days our boat used three gallons of fuel. Jimmy was the best sailor of the lot, although the other two captains, Harrie (Jimmy's older brother) and Todd weren't slouches.

(Left: Jimmy. Behind him directly to the left of his head is the "oven" I used to cook the meal I prepared.) One night it was my turn to cook. Our kitchen was a portable two-burner alcohol stove below deck and a charcoal grill bolted onto the cockpit railing.

After getting the grill going with a layer of charcoal glowing red-hot, I spread out a long piece of aluminum foil on a bench and placed six half-pound salmon fillets on it in three side-by-side rows of top-to-bottom touching salmon steaks. Then I sprinkled it all liberally with McCormick Grill Mates Lemon Pepper with Herbs seasoning. I sliced two green zucchinis and two yellow long-necked summer squash into long thin diagonal slices and laid the raw pieces over the top of the seasoned fish. Closing the foil over the top, I wrapped another long piece of foil around the enclosed package and placed it on top of the grill in the charcoal grill unit, which I then covered and closed the vents on.

(Right: The meal I prepared.) Meanwhile I boiled about 18 small red potatoes on an alcohol burner. I'm a bachelor cook so I don't bother with salads, or appetizers, or anything that is hard to clean up.

Forty minutes later I removed the tightly-closed silver package from the grill, cut the red potatoes into slices and put the pieces on five plates , sprinkled them with squirty butter from a spritzer, put salt and pepper and lemon quarters on the table, poured the red wine (I like red wine, even if it doesn't supposedly go with fish), put a fish fillet, covered with vegetable slices, on each plate and set out the fare. The fish was soft, moist and barely flaky, and the skin stayed on the aluminum sheet as I slid the fillets onto the plates. The vegetables were similarly soft and moist but not overdone.

(Above left: The crew, l-r, Jeffrey, Maddy, Shelly, moi, Jimmy. We're standing next to our boat, Spring Tide.) I cook strictly by an innate sense of timing, and appearance, although I never peeked inside the closed foil rectangle. It was one of my standard meals, although I had never cooked it in a charcoal grill before. (At home I always prepare it the same way, pouring or sprinkling anything handy over the top of the fish, and cook it at 400 degrees in the oven for twenty minutes. With so much fish in the package, and having no clue as to what temperature it was in there, I doubled the time.)

(Right: Sure I can cook. You got any fish?) The other four persons seemed to like the meal and started spreading the word throughout the fleet that I was a gourmet cook. It was actually pretty easy, and it all came together at the end. One of the other boats also cooked salmon steaks a couple of times, but they actually grilled it on the grill each time.

Back from sailing but not back yet

I'm back from sailing the Keys on Cap'n Jimbo's boat, safe & sound. What a blast--perfect weather for a week, great company, sunny, breezy days filled with adventure and strenuous activity. Some of my friends will be heartened, but shouldn't get too hopeful, that I worked on the long-neglected (since college) leg of the hidden tri athlete in me, swimming.

I took to visiting the fleet in the mornings, swimming to the other two boats and begging a cup of coffee at each one while I rested up on board for the next swimming segment. Some swims involved about half a mile. I think the great salinity of the shallow waters on the inside part of the Florida Keys helped my buoyancy, but still, when you're a quarter mile off a boat in open water with nothing closer, there's nothing to do but keep going whether you'd like to quit or not. I perfected a back-floating flutter kick to cover the distances.

Mooring at Indian Key, going ashore on the kayak beach at the Lorelei, taking the Cowpens Cut, snorkeling at Hens & Chickens Reef, dropping anchor at Cheecha Rocks, running the trails on Lignumvitae Key, holding up an ambulance while we cleared the raised bridge at Snake Creek at 3 MPH (whoops! sorry), floating off with the tide after running hard aground in the Atlantic Ocean at mean low tide off Treasure Harbor, seeing a shark (a 3-footer) while snorkeling off Shell Key, going under the high arch bridge at Channel Five, it was a spectacular week. Hail to Cap'n Jimbo, Cap'n R and Cap'n Todd for providing an eventful but safe passage for the 14 of us.

I'll post more later but I'm not back from vacation yet, as I volunteered to be bumped from my flight out of Ft. Lauderdale this afternoon. So now I am 200 feet off of I-95 at the Holiday Inn in Hollywood, FL, miles away from anything worthwhile (I can barely see the tall buildings by the shore in the far away distance) while I await a 7 am flight. I am getting a free domestic flight for my troubles; perhaps I'll use it for next year's Bucket Trip. Already there's talk afoot of hiking a 14,000 foot peak and rafting in Colorado.

Florida Keys Here I Come

I received this email two days ago from Jimmy, my college freshman roommate.

Dear Shelly, Maddy, Jeffrey, and Peter,

The 10-day forecast for the Keys shows temps
near 80, 0-10% precip, winds E-SE 5-10mph.
Excellent sailing and snorkeling weather.

Tally Ho,

Captain Jimbo

http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/33036?from=36hr_topnav_undeclared
~~__/) ~~~~~~__/) ~~~~~~~~~__/)~~~~~~~~~~__/) ~~~~~~~~~__/) ~~~~~~~__/)~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~

Oh yeah, leavin' tomorrow to spend eight days and seven nights traveling on a 28-foot sailboat along the Florida Keys from Plantation to Marathon and back. Two other similarly sized boats are coming along with, all told, 18 guys/gals.

Unlike the all-boys Grand Canyon trip last summer, this Bucket-List trip with my old college dorm mates has S.O's along. I've been charged by Jimmy with establishing and maintaining the bachelor's boat once we get underway. That way the guys can come over to our boat each evening for HH.

Jimmy claims he knows how to sail.

In other news, the 10K Group Training Program I direct for my running club, which program is entering its third week, made it into the Weekend Section of today's Washington Post. Here's the article. In the newspaper picture at the left (photo credit James A. Parcell For The Washington Post), all those runners stretching...I'm leading them off-camera in the stretches. Cool!

I've got to go home now and pack! Throw a bathing suit, a t-shirt and maybe some flip-flops into a bag. There's no runnin' on a 28-foot boat. See you on the backside!

Inauguration Blues

A week ago The One was inaugurated, and the Decider flew back to his well-deserved retirement in Texas. The Great Bird Hunter, looking much shrunken with his lopsided smirk not so smug anymore, was pushed out of town in a wheelchair, his 8-year deal with the devil apparently due and payable on that very day.

Although I was in the area, I was not in town penned into the Mall with the other 200 million people who are going to someday claim they were there on that magical but frigid day. Those masses watched the president's extraordinary speech on Jumbotrons set up around the Mall while I watched it on my TV in my dining room, perhaps the last substantive thing I will ever see on it before it goes permanently fuzzy soon in the big switch-over to digital. (I won't miss it much.)

I was in the DC area only because I had been driven out of eastern North Carolina by the weather. My college roommate Jimmy recently retired to what they call the Inner Banks down there, moving into a house on stilts by the water's edge on the Pimlico Sound in a town called Vandemere. It's not on the map.

I went down to visit with him so I could escape the Obama-Rama craziness that was engulfing DC as the Inauguration approached. I drove down, 370 miles, on the Thursday before Tuesday's Inauguration, arriving after dark. We ate a marinated steak he cooked and discussed small towns in rural Carolina, two recently divorced men in their mid-50s feeling much cast aside by the great gender movements of our times.

They apparently go to church a lot down there because on any Sunday that he doesn't, he gets a friendly call from a church member asking him how things are going. It's their way of trying to make him feel at home there. He keeps a list of handy excuses by the phone because for him, as for me, a little church goes a long way.

He retired there so he could go sailing, his passion. The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway passes by near his home and at the end of his dock is water deep enough and calm enough to take him, so long as he pays proper attention to weather forecasts, safely all the way to Florida or Maine in a small craft.

Even though it was January, I had this fantasy that it would be warm along the water in North Carolina. Not so. They were in the midst of the coldest snap they'd had there in seven years. Friday when we woke up it was 15 degrees out. Jimmy had drained his water the night before because down there, with the houses built on stilts or cinder blocks to raise them above storm (or more properly, wind) surges, the pipes are often outside and exposed.

Jimmy is a cheap guy (he would be beaming to read this) so he keeps his water heater shut off except for the twenty minutes before he takes a shower, and as for heat in the house, well, what are coats, hats and gloves for? Saturday morning when we woke up prior to embarking on a two-day car trip to the Outer Banks, it had warmed up outside to 19 degrees, but it was only 49 degrees in the house.

Then on Monday the local newsstations started talking about a seven-year record snowfall due to start later that night at around midnight, supposed to be very localized due to the unusual cold conditions. Something about eight inches or more of snow possible on Tuesday, primarily along my exact route out of there.

We got back to Jimmy's house from the Outer Banks at 8 pm on Monday. Twenty minutes later I had said goodbye and was driving pell-mell west and then north. Exactly at midnight I hit snow at the Virginia border and for twenty five minutes I drove into a blinding panorama of big fat snowflakes coming horizontally into the cone of light cast out by my headlights. But then I drove out of the storm and the way was clear.

At 1:20 am as I drove through Richmond on Interstate 95, 100 miles from DC, I passed a highway sign announcing that due to the Inauguration later that day, I-95 would be closed down at 3 am. I had 100 minutes to go 100 miles.

I joined a mad horde of truckers barreling northbound in a convoy at, well, a considerable speed in order to get past the bottleneck of DC before the authorities pinched off the highway there. Fast as this Mad Max moving phalanx was going, several State Trooper cruisers passed us enroute to their Inauguration posts throughout DC.

I made it home with a few minutes to spare. It did snow down in eastern Carolina most of Tuesday. Jimmy sent me this picture he took of his dock in the snow.