how far will a canoe drift in 1o minutes?
a cautionary tale
the canoe was fully on land (about 2o feet to the right of where it is here in the water), perpendicular to the shore but canted slightly at the bottom of the hill. it was partially loaded & i was tossing firewood into its vicinity from where it'd been stashed uphill beside the other canoe. one piece of wood took a weird bounce & tonked against the boat, which began sliding with increasing speed toward the water as i lunged for it. with all the growth between me & it, by the time i got there, it was already about 15 feet out – too far to jump into the shoreside shallow & reach out to grab it & the water was still cold enough that i wasn't game for full immersion.
i climbed up the hill, unlocked my bike & raced home for my boltcutters, theorizing that i had a vague chance of being able to hijack Phil & Melissa's canoe & take off after it. this is on the west coast of Lemieux Island: just around the corner on the north coast is an eddy it was likely to get temporarily caught in &, if i was too late for that, there's also an eddy on the east side of Lemieux. if i was lucky, it wouldn't get caught in a major current & swept toward the dam/falls. the last i saw of it as i rode away, it was about 3o feet out & drifting extremely slowly toward the south end of Île Ecueil.
the whole trip home & back was accompanied by an imagined ærial view of the possible progess of the boat as it drifted around. even at worst, it seemed i'd have a pretty good chance of recovering it.
when i got back, my first view of the channel was emptily unencouraging but this was the sight i was gifted with when i swung in to park.
there's another weird eddy caused by the river hitting Île Ecueil that drew the canoe into it & a counterclockwise loop south & east to the shore of Lemieux, where it sidled up against a coupla rocks to wait.
lesson well-learned: always arrange a boat so it won't slide away from you (this being a faultzone, an earth tremor could be enough to vibrate it into motion).
whew!
how far will a canoe drift in 1o minutes?
a cautionary tale
the canoe was fully on land (about 2o feet to the right of where it is here in the water), perpendicular to the shore but canted slightly at the bottom of the hill. it was partially loaded & i was tossing firewood into its vicinity from where it'd been stashed uphill beside the other canoe. one piece of wood took a weird bounce & tonked against the boat, which began sliding with increasing speed toward the water as i lunged for it. with all the growth between me & it, by the time i got there, it was already about 15 feet out – too far to jump into the shoreside shallow & reach out to grab it & the water was still cold enough that i wasn't game for full immersion.
i climbed up the hill, unlocked my bike & raced home for my boltcutters, theorizing that i had a vague chance of being able to hijack Phil & Melissa's canoe & take off after it. this is on the west coast of Lemieux Island: just around the corner on the north coast is an eddy it was likely to get temporarily caught in &, if i was too late for that, there's also an eddy on the east side of Lemieux. if i was lucky, it wouldn't get caught in a major current & swept toward the dam/falls. the last i saw of it as i rode away, it was about 3o feet out & drifting extremely slowly toward the south end of Île Ecueil.
the whole trip home & back was accompanied by an imagined ærial view of the possible progess of the boat as it drifted around. even at worst, it seemed i'd have a pretty good chance of recovering it.
when i got back, my first view of the channel was emptily unencouraging but this was the sight i was gifted with when i swung in to park.
there's another weird eddy caused by the river hitting Île Ecueil that drew the canoe into it & a counterclockwise loop south & east to the shore of Lemieux, where it sidled up against a coupla rocks to wait.
lesson well-learned: always arrange a boat so it won't slide away from you (this being a faultzone, an earth tremor could be enough to vibrate it into motion).
whew!