First in a series of posts about this place.
We left the campsite at Monticello in the morning - late because we both overslept - and headed toward Demmick Island. The trip was pretty uneventful except that we saw a colony of beavers swimming upstream towards one of the islands - in all I think we saw 6 or 7 little heads bobbing above the surface. We also saw the usual collection of birds, including a hawk and an eagle.
When Demmick Island came into view we saw that the landing place was blocked by a large pontoon boat and a canoe and we couldn't see beyond the landing to tell what the water was like. However, sitting in front of the island was a big sand bar and the water behind it looked calm, so we maneuvered left (the landing was on the right side of the island, left side of the channel) thinking that we could use the calm water to either land on the island itself or land long enough to get a look at the landing area.
As we came around the island we were caught in a fierce cross current that took the canoe and slammed it against the bank between the island and the sand bar. We grabbed bush to steady the canoe, but the cross current was too strong, and was weirdly inconsistent. One second it was shoving the boat against the bank, the next second trying to pull it downstream.. I thought to take the rope we use for docking and wanted to scramble out onto the island and just hold onto the boat until Larisa could get out. Then we could have pulled out, current or not. But the current was too strong, and the boat tilted, and we started to take on water. I knew then that we were going over. I started to say something reassuring to Larisa so that she would have a little warning. My chivalrous statement amounted to "Oh shit!" before the next surge of current dumped us into the water. While it took a bunch of sentences to write, all of this happened in about 20 seconds.
The boat tipped, and I surfaced shouting "I'm okay, I'm okay", which was the signal Larisa and I had agreed upon if/when we dumped the canoe. Larisa didn't say anything, and I came to understand intimately the expression "my blood ran cold". I didn't see her, and was scared that she had either gotten caught in the junk on the bottom or stuck under the canoe. Just as I called out for her she popped up ahead of me and was swept down stream, where she was caught against a tree that beavers had chewed down and which was now laying out into the river. The canoe (which we've named Tshhh, by the by, I'll explain later) wound up under the same tree, stern facing downstream, Larisa next to it. I couldn't fight the current to get to shore, so I wound up on the tree with Larisa downstream of me. I was crushing her against the trunk. This took about 15 seconds.
When the current slammed me into Larisa I finally knew that she was at least conscious because she grunted and looked at me. Larisa popped the cord on her life vest to inflate it, and began calling for help from the campers on shore. I moved myself down the trunk so that I wasn't crushing her anymore and I added my voice to hers until we finally heard someone respond. I caught a glimpse of a guy running through the tall grass along the shore and decided that he wouldn't be able to help fast enough and that there was little chance we could hang onto the tree for very long. It was low enough to grab, too high to climb onto. I pointed my feet downstream (which cost me my pants) and pushed under the tree, popping my vest after I was under it so that it wouldn't grab the vest as I went by. This took about 20 seconds.
I was able to swim towards shore and get out in a calm place about 30 yards downstream. The camper was asking about the number of people in my canoe. I told him it was just me and Larisa and started running back up the shore towards the tree where she was caught. I only got about halfway there when Larisa popped out from under the tree, followed immediately by the canoe, which the current had finally forced under the fallen tree. Larisa was shouting "the canoe, the canoe" but at that moment I couldn't' have cared less. I jumped into the water again, took her hand, and pulled her to shore. The camper grabbed Tshhh as she went by. All things considered, we might have lost the canoe without the campers, but I'd grabbed the "Oh crap" bag as the canoe went over, so we'd have had stuff to get by with if we'd had to wait for help.
We hauled the boat through the tall reeds to the landing spot (which was a fairly huge chuck of calm water - we should have just pulled in there) and retrieved the couple of dry bags that burst their bindings. Another camper took his motorboat downstream to get the paddles. We dragged ourselves up the bank and to a campsite, then began ferrying the equipment to camp. We tied Tshhh to a tree near the bank, but took everything else. After inventory, we found that we'd only lost the tripod for the camera, and the locking cables for the boat.
Given the circumstances, it was a cheap introduction to how a "normal" day canoeing the river can turn into a terrifying brush with disaster.
