Your water related stories
XM-MT's response in the Gordon Lightfoot thread about mooning the Edmund Fitzgerald reminded me of an encounter I had while canoeing, and I know plenty of you have interesting stories of a time you were in or on the water. Please share your story with the rest of the board.
Over 40 years ago, a buddy and I decided to canoe to Lake Huron. We started on the Flint River in Flushing.
Our fist issue was as the Flint river ended, it didn't just flow into another defined river. It flowed into the Shiawassee Wetlands where there was no clear channel to follow. We knew we needed to head east, and we tried to follow what little flow of water we could find, but it took us a good hour of meandering before we found our way to the Saginaw River.
Our next encounter is what XM's story reminded me of. I believe we were near the Grey Iron foundry when we noticed a ship was heading up river. We were hugging the right shore but debated whether to get out of the river to let the ship pass. We took that course and were glad we did. The ship's wake wasn't super huge, but it probably would have swamped us.
Our 3rd encounter was the most interesting. We made it past the I 75 bridge as it was getting dark and made camp for the night. The next morning it was much cooler and the wind was howling. We got in the river with hopes of making it to Lake Huron, but paddling as hard as we could, we remained stationary. The minute we stopped paddling, we moved backwards. The Saginaw river was flowing backwards! My buddy's shoulder was bothering him , so we went to shore to figure out what to do. We realized our only option was to go up river. I sat in the back using my paddle as a rudder. My buddy sat in the front not using his paddle at all. We went up river at a very fast clip, no paddling needed. I remember seeing the face of one of the bridge attendants who spotted us. I interpreted his grin as his thinking "what are these idiots doing?"
Anyway, we made it back to Saginaw and called his brother to pick us up. We never made it to Lake Huron, but it was quite the adventure.
I am lucky enough to have an uncle who was a great lakes freighter captain. That allowed me to go on two "cruises" around the great lakes. My favorite story is from the first one. I was about 12. We had just backed up the Chicago River and were docked for the night waiting to unload. My cousin (he was 11 at the time), my uncle, my mom, and I were walking the deck at night, checking out the Chicago skyline when a small speedboat pulled up beside the freighter. Apparently, large boats can drive people to do some crazy things. On this night, this boat full of young, apparently intoxicated women decided it would be a great idea to flash our freighter. Judging by my uncle's reaction, this occurrence was not uncommon. Well my cousin and I clearly were not prepared for this. My mom thought it was hilarious. The women then noticed us standing there and were extremely embarrassed they had just flashed some children. It is clearly a moment I will never forget.
Lol. Good story. You from Flushing? Go Raiders!
I'm trying to figure out how many of these were written by ChatGPT. The ones lacking precise personal details are the best candidates.
I spent 10 days on a liveaboard dive boat in Indonesia in 2011. Amazing diving and we were also able to see the Komodo dragons on Rinca. That evening we hit a huge storm that bounced us around pretty good and a wave took off the dive platform, leaving a pretty good hole in the side of the boat. We were safe but stranded for three days in a pretty remote area before we could get a repair crew in to get her seaworthy again. Sheltered in a bay and watched the dragons sun themselves on the beach. Was pretty scary and we lost the last third of our itinerary but got a free return booking out of it.
The following happened on a boat:
First time I got drunk
First time I bonged a beer
Almost lost my foot on a boat prop (under the boat)
Lost my virginity
I was fortunate to grow up in a lake house. My father restored vintage Chris Crafts as a hobby. So I’ve been going to antique boat shows since I was a kid. Lakes and boating was all I knew growing up.
One time I was trying to react sodium metal with chlorine gas, but I didn't have the right thing to hold the sodium which you're supposed to melt/ignite. Anyways, after many failed attempts I get the thing to work and it's brilliant. But then I have a ton of leftover sodium to dispose of, and where do I go with it but to some trusty tap water.
Heating that stuff and melting it caused all kinds of oxides to form on the surface. The second I added the first chunk to the beaker I could tell something was wrong. As I was releasing the beaker into the sink the whole thing exploded. And then I had like 3 more chunks to dispose of. It was not for the faint of heart.
Lived on Strawberry Lake for a long time. When we were kids my dad would always admonish us to keep our hands in the boat so we wouldn’t get them crushed on the aluminum dock. Sure enough he was the only one who forgot his rule and crushed his hand as he pulled up to the dock. I think I laughed the entire way driving him to the hospital.
My dad bought his hunting cabin in the 80s while I was in diapers; my brothers were about 5 and 8 years old. One of our first trips there, we went down the hill to the creek and despite none of us having a bathing suit, dad thought it was a great day for a swim.
We played all afternoon and swam up and down the creek, and climbed up the opposite side of the ravine up to the road (an unimproved seasonal two-track), and quickly got turned around. We were completely lost and our only hope was to follow the trail until we came across someone.
Imagine if you will, driving down an old logging trail, miles deep in the Manistee national forest, only to come across a random man in his underwear asking for directions, while two young boys in their tighty whiteys and a naked toddler look on from behind the trees….
That brings back memories. We used to go fishing on the Tit (Tittabawassee)
Reading all these stories makes me wonder how any of us are still alive.
Made me think about swimming in the gravel pit and thinking it was a good idea to swim through a submerged cement mixer
I was on the ferry boat traveling from Copper Harbor to Isle Royale in an extremely dense fog. As we got close to the island, they run the boat up on a rock that they called "Jesus Rock," so named because if you stand on it (it rises up to about 2 inches below the surface) you appear like Jesus walking on water, also when you hit it you say "oh Jesus!"
We ran pretty far up on it and struck it with enough force throw people around, several injuries from people hitting the solid steel of the railings, deck, etc. The boat was listing steeply, enough that you had to almost climb to go from one side to the other. At first, no one could tell if we breached the hull and were taking on water/sinking, so many were panicking. After a few minutes it was clear we weren't sinking, at least not quickly, but there were still fears that if we slipped off the rock and the hull was breached that we would. If too many people moved around, you could feel the boat start to slide beneath you, so people were shaky, to say the least.
The fog was so dense, you could only see about 10 feet in front of you, and nobody was excited about ending up in very cold Lake Superior at a time when it would be difficult to be found. We knew that the charter fishing boats were coming from the island to help out, but they were having a hard time finding us given the conditions and were traveling slowly to avoid accidentally running into us and possibly pushing the boat off the rock.
For about 30 eery minutes, we sat and listened until we heard boat horns in the distance coming closer and closer, with our boat periodically blasting its horn to help them zero in on our location. In the end, it turned out there was no hole in the hull and we probably weren't in all that much danger, but for those ~30 minutes, it was pretty tense. A bit of a mess trying to offload people into the smaller charter boats from our deck given the steep angle and with it shifting perceptibly as people crossed it to climb off. It was especially difficult to get the people that were injured (the were some broken bones as I recall) off safely.
This reminds me of the Captain on the Red October who never got to see Montana.
Year before I came on the scene, my father-in-law had purchased an inflatable catamaran sailboat, which was made in the UK. When I married into the family, I noticed it sitting in a shed in pieces, covered in dust. I had quite a bit of sailing experience, so 4-5 years later I decided to assemble it and take it out for a sail. It weighed a ton. I finally got it together, hoisted the sail and went out for my "3 hour cruise." Thing was an absolute pig. It's best point of sail was sideways. FIL is ecstatic that I finally got the cat out for a sail. FIL takes MIL out for a sail - he has very little sailing experience. For two hours they went back and forth, 200 yards offshore and parallel to the Lake Huron beach, unable to make it to shore. We sent out a rescue team in a canoe and a row boat. MIL was PISSED! I just laughed my ass off. Catamaran went into the dumpster the next day.