Been months since I posted. I make this post as a gift to myself.
I'm not sure why, but I got it in my head to canoe the local river. The Ocumulgee River in Georgia runs 250 miles from lake Jackson just south of Atlanta down through Macon to Hawkinsville, Abbeville, Jacksonville, Lumber City, and finally meets the Oconee to form the Altamaha. Ultimately, I will finish canoeing these rivers as well. I didn't realize it until I had undertaken the task, but humans have navigated this river for well over 17,000 years.
I kept this in mind as I saw countless hogs, deer, aligators, and even bear. The birds and other wild life were astonishing. I even saw a 6 foot 100 lb Atlantic Sturgeon jump in front of me. It was a young one.
I did this by canoeing 15 different day segments. I didn't do them in order, but rather took advantage of where the water was the best. I did 4 segments in a 75 mile campout trip, and another 2 of the segments in a 45 over nighter trip. I made a log of each segment's journey, just for myself. However, I thought I would share my latest log entry for anyone who might have an interest. Its a long read. Sorry......
Date: August 11th, 2012
Who: Eddy, Layla
With: Mad River - Duck Hunter 17
Where: Ben Hill County Landing to Barr’s Bluff Landing. 10 miles
Water: Flow rate at Abbeville: 880 cfs
This was my first ever “solo canoeing” trip. That is if you don’t count Layla, my 7 pound pup. I had wanted to canoe alone, but the opportunity had never presented itself. Today, as I found myself driving alone to do the last 10 miles of the 250 mile Ocmulgee, I knew this was that day.
I realized I would have transportation problems and decided to solve them by finding someone local to help me before I committed to the trip. I decided I would ask a stranger to follow me to drop off my canoe, then follow me to drop of my vehicle at the get out location, and then carry me back to my canoe. The alternative was to put in, canoe, get out, and hitchhike back…. or walk miles…. not a good idea in my estimation.
I pulled up to the only local convenience store and at the pump was a small man in my age range, pumping gas into an old pickup. I pulled up on the other side of the pumps, my two side-by-side canoes behind the excursion on the trailer. I stepped out and approached this man and just started talking.
I introduced myself, told him I was canoeing and this was the last 10 miles of the Ocmulgee I had to complete the river. I explained my transportation needs and what I needed and asked him if he would help me. He smiled and asked what I was offering. “Gas?” He said. I said sure. He pondered at it was we entered the store and he then asked, “Is it worth $20 to you?”, I looked him in the eye, held out my hand and said sure. We shook and I got change for the $100 I brought. Inside I reflected back on the fact that on my drive over, I had thought it would be worth an easy cool $20 if I could just find someone to help me just as this gentleman was doing.
When we got back outside I, slowed down to take a closer look at this man. I guess because I moved so fast and wasn’t expecting to find someone willing to help me on the very first try, that I really hadn’t done anything to really gauge this man or access him in anyway. He appeared to be a less privileged fellow, some might call him poor, but having an insured and working vehicle on the road to some would make him advantaged in this area of the state. Yes, I am assuming it was insured and properly tagged. His teeth were bad such that all I really saw was the 4 or 6 at the bottom front ones. His upper lip was sunk in right in the middle. His fingers were short and evidenced a life of hard manual labor. I wasn’t sure if the tips of one or two of his lesser fingers hadn’t been lost. His clothing were just that. Style was a static thing in his home, but neither his clothes nor his person was dirty. Despite this man’s worn appearance, when you caught his eyes they were striking. Small jet blue eyes. He always seemed to keep them busy. Down, away, and mostly always busy as if an excuse not to lock gazes.
Then we were on the way. He followed me to the Ben Hill County landing, where a week before I finished the previous canoe trip. A car was on the sand bar and two men were starting to fish. My temporary assistant helped me unload the canoe and place the few items I brought (2 paddles, a PFD, and a soft cooler). As he realized my intent to leave all this unattended while we dropped off the excursion and he brought me back, he ever so politely asked if I was confident in what I was doing. I assured him that in all the trips I had taken nothing once had happened to my gear which I frequently left unattended, and that we wouldn’t be gone long. But for insurance, I approached the two men fishing and asked if they would watch my stuff, to which the gladly agreed.
I quickly scurried down the road to the get out location to drop off the excursion. Behind me on the trailer was the red canoe. I normally strap each canoe face down individually with one diagonal tie-down strap. Then I use a tie down strap across both canoes in the front and the back. This works fine when both canoes are on the trailer. At this point only the one diagonal tie down strap was holding down the red canoe. Now imagine my shock as I looked in the rear view mirror and watched as it falls off the trailer and tumbles down the dirt road behind me and comes to a stop!!!
I stopped the excursion. I slowly and carefully backed up the trailer. Then I got out and acted as if almost nothing had happened. The now jet blue wide eyed man helped me load her back on the trailer and strap her back down with two straps, noticing that she didn’t have a single new scratch on her that we could make out and that she was, as this man agreed, “One tough old girl!!”
We dropped off the excursion and Layla and I approached the stranger’s small S-10 Chevy pickup truck, it wasn’t a crew cab so there was no rear seat. I was surprised when I looked in to see the seat clean of all debris. I thought to myself, “I doubt my seat would be that clean. Did he clear it for me?” I glanced at the floor board to see if he just shoved the seat clean in a moment. It didn’t appear so. I got in and Layla, my 3 year old Yorkie jumped in without complaint.
I must pause to give credit to sweet Layla. She goes with me on almost every river trip. More than anyone else has. She doesn’t complain despite having been knocked over board repeatedly and even attacked by an alligator! Layla can be very stand offish. She accesses people on her own terms. I respect Layla.
Anyway, back to the trip. After closing the passenger door, I handed the man the $20 and introduced myself. I was mad at myself for my poor social skills. I should have done this much earlier. He told me his name. I did good to remember his first name; Walter. Nothing personal to him, I’m just virtually retarded when it comes to remembering peoples names!
No sooner than we left, it began to rain. It was that “edge of a storm” rain. The sun was almost shinning on us yet half the sky was dark. And the rain drops, though not many, were large and heavy and landed with thump. I knew right away that many more were soon to follow as we turned off the dirt road right into the dark sky. The windshield quickly covered in water, and the man apologized that his wipers no longer worked. I smiled to him and said, “Hey, we can still see the lines.” He smiled back and repeated me assessment. I sat and simply hoped that this assessment didn’t get any worse. It was then that Walter felt compelled to talk to me.
Walter began by telling me he admired what I was doing: The canoeing the entire river and all. He told me of his mother who had been given 3 months to live and was on month 5. How his father was already gone. He talked about the local politics. We spoke of the river’s tranquility and beauty. We spoke of Indians and the 17,000 years that men have been on the river. He reached up onto the little ledge in front of his speedometer and grabbed something. He held it up in his hand. It was a large arrowhead. He said he had a shoe box full. I envied him. He then told me of Indian mounds along the river not so far away. Mounds that were unprotected and that he and others explored.
I listened in quite shock as he told me he had dug the mounds looking for artifacts. That he found none, but that he had unearthed a corpse. One so old that he said the skull disintegrated in his hands as he tried to lift it. He said that it was small, had all its teeth, and not a single cavity. We agreed that it was likely a child. I asked him where the mounds were and he gave me directions. I wish I could protect them. Can I?
Despite leaving Walter to board my canoe with mixed feelings, I was glad to have met him, solve my transportation dilemma, and listen to what this man had to say. As he pulled off, I thought back to one story in particular that he told me: One of his close friends, a relatively young man in his late 40’s or early 50’s from what I can tell, lay dying in the hospital. He went to see his friend and his friend’s last words to him was that he just wanted to go back to the river with his dog.
It profoundly touched me to hear that. I tucked that away as I listened to his other stories that surrounded it. But that story touched me. It touches me now. I understood that as I and my tiny dog floated down the river that day, I carried that dying man’s wish. The wish of a man whose name I will never know. A man who’s existence and but this one wish the man had, I learned of from a complete stranger. It was like stranger hearsay. Yet I felt compelled to honor him by enjoying this little trip as though he could live it through me. I think that I realized that one day it will be me lying in that bed wishing I had one more day on the river with my dog.
The trip was uneventful, but for the fact that it was my first day in either canoe alone. I took the duck hunter so that I could sit in the front seat facing backwards and canoe solo with the canoe pointed with what is normally the rear upstream. It worked flawlessly except when I encountered strong head winds. When I say strong, I mean surprisingly swift wind as if a strong storm was approaching, though I didn’t get any rain until later. The problem came if I allowed the nose of the canoe to turn away from straight into the wind. A few times, the wind caught her from the side and simply over powered me. On one stretch I found myself pointed completely upstream and me simply paddling backwards downstream until I got out of the wind. Even backwards, with the current and my paddling, I never lacked control. Eventually I got her turned around, but event surprised me. I am confident that had I carried any significant weight (50 to 100 lbs.) in the front of the boat that it would not have been a problem at all.
I took my time. I was surprised to look at my GPS and realize that I was only a ½ mile from the slue that led to the boat ramp. I pushed it then, determined to feel the burn. It felt wonderful as I powered her downstream.
I entered the slue, something I would never have recognized as my exit off the river but for the Google Maps on my ruggedized Android phone. Sure enough, it was right into the wind with no current to help me. I worked my way to the ramp as a man put in his boat. He took interest in me and my boat and questioned me. He offered and I gratefully accepted his offer to help left the canoe onto the trailer. Having told him that I had just completed my voyage of the Ocmulgee, he launched into his stories of the river. I listened politely. They were good stories. Finally we exchanged names, I remember his first as Wayne. I was honored to meet him. As he left, two other men pulled up in a boat and the ritual repeated itself with another set of equally entertaining stories. These gentlemen opened their cooler to proudly display their cooler full of just caught mullet. They so engaged themselves that their boat floated away and one of the men waded in up to his knees to retrieve her.
I said my goodbyes and drove home. I was full that day. Full of feelings: Accomplishment for completing the river; Lucky for this great day I had enjoyed on the river despite not seeing any deer, hogs, gators, or the like. (Though I did see a cool snake and a nice assortment of birds. Seemed like I came upon a family of falcons all perched in a single tree. There were as many as 20 and they all dispersed as they saw me round a corner.); Sorry at the thought of a child’s precious grave so recklessly plundered; … and gratitude for life and the adventure I just enjoyed.
I'm not sure why, but I got it in my head to canoe the local river. The Ocumulgee River in Georgia runs 250 miles from lake Jackson just south of Atlanta down through Macon to Hawkinsville, Abbeville, Jacksonville, Lumber City, and finally meets the Oconee to form the Altamaha. Ultimately, I will finish canoeing these rivers as well. I didn't realize it until I had undertaken the task, but humans have navigated this river for well over 17,000 years.
I kept this in mind as I saw countless hogs, deer, aligators, and even bear. The birds and other wild life were astonishing. I even saw a 6 foot 100 lb Atlantic Sturgeon jump in front of me. It was a young one.
I did this by canoeing 15 different day segments. I didn't do them in order, but rather took advantage of where the water was the best. I did 4 segments in a 75 mile campout trip, and another 2 of the segments in a 45 over nighter trip. I made a log of each segment's journey, just for myself. However, I thought I would share my latest log entry for anyone who might have an interest. Its a long read. Sorry......
Date: August 11th, 2012
Who: Eddy, Layla
With: Mad River - Duck Hunter 17
Where: Ben Hill County Landing to Barr’s Bluff Landing. 10 miles
Water: Flow rate at Abbeville: 880 cfs
This was my first ever “solo canoeing” trip. That is if you don’t count Layla, my 7 pound pup. I had wanted to canoe alone, but the opportunity had never presented itself. Today, as I found myself driving alone to do the last 10 miles of the 250 mile Ocmulgee, I knew this was that day.
I realized I would have transportation problems and decided to solve them by finding someone local to help me before I committed to the trip. I decided I would ask a stranger to follow me to drop off my canoe, then follow me to drop of my vehicle at the get out location, and then carry me back to my canoe. The alternative was to put in, canoe, get out, and hitchhike back…. or walk miles…. not a good idea in my estimation.
I pulled up to the only local convenience store and at the pump was a small man in my age range, pumping gas into an old pickup. I pulled up on the other side of the pumps, my two side-by-side canoes behind the excursion on the trailer. I stepped out and approached this man and just started talking.
I introduced myself, told him I was canoeing and this was the last 10 miles of the Ocmulgee I had to complete the river. I explained my transportation needs and what I needed and asked him if he would help me. He smiled and asked what I was offering. “Gas?” He said. I said sure. He pondered at it was we entered the store and he then asked, “Is it worth $20 to you?”, I looked him in the eye, held out my hand and said sure. We shook and I got change for the $100 I brought. Inside I reflected back on the fact that on my drive over, I had thought it would be worth an easy cool $20 if I could just find someone to help me just as this gentleman was doing.
When we got back outside I, slowed down to take a closer look at this man. I guess because I moved so fast and wasn’t expecting to find someone willing to help me on the very first try, that I really hadn’t done anything to really gauge this man or access him in anyway. He appeared to be a less privileged fellow, some might call him poor, but having an insured and working vehicle on the road to some would make him advantaged in this area of the state. Yes, I am assuming it was insured and properly tagged. His teeth were bad such that all I really saw was the 4 or 6 at the bottom front ones. His upper lip was sunk in right in the middle. His fingers were short and evidenced a life of hard manual labor. I wasn’t sure if the tips of one or two of his lesser fingers hadn’t been lost. His clothing were just that. Style was a static thing in his home, but neither his clothes nor his person was dirty. Despite this man’s worn appearance, when you caught his eyes they were striking. Small jet blue eyes. He always seemed to keep them busy. Down, away, and mostly always busy as if an excuse not to lock gazes.
Then we were on the way. He followed me to the Ben Hill County landing, where a week before I finished the previous canoe trip. A car was on the sand bar and two men were starting to fish. My temporary assistant helped me unload the canoe and place the few items I brought (2 paddles, a PFD, and a soft cooler). As he realized my intent to leave all this unattended while we dropped off the excursion and he brought me back, he ever so politely asked if I was confident in what I was doing. I assured him that in all the trips I had taken nothing once had happened to my gear which I frequently left unattended, and that we wouldn’t be gone long. But for insurance, I approached the two men fishing and asked if they would watch my stuff, to which the gladly agreed.
I quickly scurried down the road to the get out location to drop off the excursion. Behind me on the trailer was the red canoe. I normally strap each canoe face down individually with one diagonal tie-down strap. Then I use a tie down strap across both canoes in the front and the back. This works fine when both canoes are on the trailer. At this point only the one diagonal tie down strap was holding down the red canoe. Now imagine my shock as I looked in the rear view mirror and watched as it falls off the trailer and tumbles down the dirt road behind me and comes to a stop!!!
I stopped the excursion. I slowly and carefully backed up the trailer. Then I got out and acted as if almost nothing had happened. The now jet blue wide eyed man helped me load her back on the trailer and strap her back down with two straps, noticing that she didn’t have a single new scratch on her that we could make out and that she was, as this man agreed, “One tough old girl!!”
We dropped off the excursion and Layla and I approached the stranger’s small S-10 Chevy pickup truck, it wasn’t a crew cab so there was no rear seat. I was surprised when I looked in to see the seat clean of all debris. I thought to myself, “I doubt my seat would be that clean. Did he clear it for me?” I glanced at the floor board to see if he just shoved the seat clean in a moment. It didn’t appear so. I got in and Layla, my 3 year old Yorkie jumped in without complaint.
I must pause to give credit to sweet Layla. She goes with me on almost every river trip. More than anyone else has. She doesn’t complain despite having been knocked over board repeatedly and even attacked by an alligator! Layla can be very stand offish. She accesses people on her own terms. I respect Layla.
Anyway, back to the trip. After closing the passenger door, I handed the man the $20 and introduced myself. I was mad at myself for my poor social skills. I should have done this much earlier. He told me his name. I did good to remember his first name; Walter. Nothing personal to him, I’m just virtually retarded when it comes to remembering peoples names!
No sooner than we left, it began to rain. It was that “edge of a storm” rain. The sun was almost shinning on us yet half the sky was dark. And the rain drops, though not many, were large and heavy and landed with thump. I knew right away that many more were soon to follow as we turned off the dirt road right into the dark sky. The windshield quickly covered in water, and the man apologized that his wipers no longer worked. I smiled to him and said, “Hey, we can still see the lines.” He smiled back and repeated me assessment. I sat and simply hoped that this assessment didn’t get any worse. It was then that Walter felt compelled to talk to me.
Walter began by telling me he admired what I was doing: The canoeing the entire river and all. He told me of his mother who had been given 3 months to live and was on month 5. How his father was already gone. He talked about the local politics. We spoke of the river’s tranquility and beauty. We spoke of Indians and the 17,000 years that men have been on the river. He reached up onto the little ledge in front of his speedometer and grabbed something. He held it up in his hand. It was a large arrowhead. He said he had a shoe box full. I envied him. He then told me of Indian mounds along the river not so far away. Mounds that were unprotected and that he and others explored.
I listened in quite shock as he told me he had dug the mounds looking for artifacts. That he found none, but that he had unearthed a corpse. One so old that he said the skull disintegrated in his hands as he tried to lift it. He said that it was small, had all its teeth, and not a single cavity. We agreed that it was likely a child. I asked him where the mounds were and he gave me directions. I wish I could protect them. Can I?
Despite leaving Walter to board my canoe with mixed feelings, I was glad to have met him, solve my transportation dilemma, and listen to what this man had to say. As he pulled off, I thought back to one story in particular that he told me: One of his close friends, a relatively young man in his late 40’s or early 50’s from what I can tell, lay dying in the hospital. He went to see his friend and his friend’s last words to him was that he just wanted to go back to the river with his dog.
It profoundly touched me to hear that. I tucked that away as I listened to his other stories that surrounded it. But that story touched me. It touches me now. I understood that as I and my tiny dog floated down the river that day, I carried that dying man’s wish. The wish of a man whose name I will never know. A man who’s existence and but this one wish the man had, I learned of from a complete stranger. It was like stranger hearsay. Yet I felt compelled to honor him by enjoying this little trip as though he could live it through me. I think that I realized that one day it will be me lying in that bed wishing I had one more day on the river with my dog.
The trip was uneventful, but for the fact that it was my first day in either canoe alone. I took the duck hunter so that I could sit in the front seat facing backwards and canoe solo with the canoe pointed with what is normally the rear upstream. It worked flawlessly except when I encountered strong head winds. When I say strong, I mean surprisingly swift wind as if a strong storm was approaching, though I didn’t get any rain until later. The problem came if I allowed the nose of the canoe to turn away from straight into the wind. A few times, the wind caught her from the side and simply over powered me. On one stretch I found myself pointed completely upstream and me simply paddling backwards downstream until I got out of the wind. Even backwards, with the current and my paddling, I never lacked control. Eventually I got her turned around, but event surprised me. I am confident that had I carried any significant weight (50 to 100 lbs.) in the front of the boat that it would not have been a problem at all.
I took my time. I was surprised to look at my GPS and realize that I was only a ½ mile from the slue that led to the boat ramp. I pushed it then, determined to feel the burn. It felt wonderful as I powered her downstream.
I entered the slue, something I would never have recognized as my exit off the river but for the Google Maps on my ruggedized Android phone. Sure enough, it was right into the wind with no current to help me. I worked my way to the ramp as a man put in his boat. He took interest in me and my boat and questioned me. He offered and I gratefully accepted his offer to help left the canoe onto the trailer. Having told him that I had just completed my voyage of the Ocmulgee, he launched into his stories of the river. I listened politely. They were good stories. Finally we exchanged names, I remember his first as Wayne. I was honored to meet him. As he left, two other men pulled up in a boat and the ritual repeated itself with another set of equally entertaining stories. These gentlemen opened their cooler to proudly display their cooler full of just caught mullet. They so engaged themselves that their boat floated away and one of the men waded in up to his knees to retrieve her.
I said my goodbyes and drove home. I was full that day. Full of feelings: Accomplishment for completing the river; Lucky for this great day I had enjoyed on the river despite not seeing any deer, hogs, gators, or the like. (Though I did see a cool snake and a nice assortment of birds. Seemed like I came upon a family of falcons all perched in a single tree. There were as many as 20 and they all dispersed as they saw me round a corner.); Sorry at the thought of a child’s precious grave so recklessly plundered; … and gratitude for life and the adventure I just enjoyed.
