blobbottlebob
Well-Known Member
Finishing up my story.
Once I made it into shallow water, I took the gear off of my back and set it down in the rocks along shore. Next, I emptied the boat out, one item at a time. I had a second tank which went into the rocks as well. I threw my paddle and life jacket on shore and dragged the boat up the rocks as best I could. Once up on the grass, I was able to dump quite a bit of water out. Then I was able to haul the canoe up on the grass and completely empty it. Now I was back in business!
I changed tanks on my gear. I placed the gear in an accessible spot in the canoe for dropping it in the lake. I re-loaded everything and went back out to try again. I had already decided that I was not going to spend a second tank looking for my fin. I was never going to be closer than I was when I was anchored to the spot where I lost it and it wasn't worth wasting more time on it.
I went out a bit deeper. When I dropped my gear overboard, I carefully set it on the rail and slid it over. It went smoothly without a hint of capsizing. On the bottom, I set a compass heading so that I would not be circling around on one fin. (Huntindog just noted in his post that having one fin on is likely to make you circle because one leg kicks harder than the other. I've done it before so, I made every effort to stay as straight as I could). I didn't have a ton of luck out there but I did find some glass. The coolest thing was a quart soda bottle from about the 1920s with an embossed horse on it. I later saw my niece who loves horses so, I gave the bottle to her. When I surfaced, I thought for sure that I would find that I did not swim very straight. Amazingly, though, I was far from the boat and relatively straight along the heading that I set. After swimming back to the boat on the one fin, I paddled in and decided to call it a season.
Once I made it into shallow water, I took the gear off of my back and set it down in the rocks along shore. Next, I emptied the boat out, one item at a time. I had a second tank which went into the rocks as well. I threw my paddle and life jacket on shore and dragged the boat up the rocks as best I could. Once up on the grass, I was able to dump quite a bit of water out. Then I was able to haul the canoe up on the grass and completely empty it. Now I was back in business!
I changed tanks on my gear. I placed the gear in an accessible spot in the canoe for dropping it in the lake. I re-loaded everything and went back out to try again. I had already decided that I was not going to spend a second tank looking for my fin. I was never going to be closer than I was when I was anchored to the spot where I lost it and it wasn't worth wasting more time on it.
I went out a bit deeper. When I dropped my gear overboard, I carefully set it on the rail and slid it over. It went smoothly without a hint of capsizing. On the bottom, I set a compass heading so that I would not be circling around on one fin. (Huntindog just noted in his post that having one fin on is likely to make you circle because one leg kicks harder than the other. I've done it before so, I made every effort to stay as straight as I could). I didn't have a ton of luck out there but I did find some glass. The coolest thing was a quart soda bottle from about the 1920s with an embossed horse on it. I later saw my niece who loves horses so, I gave the bottle to her. When I surfaced, I thought for sure that I would find that I did not swim very straight. Amazingly, though, I was far from the boat and relatively straight along the heading that I set. After swimming back to the boat on the one fin, I paddled in and decided to call it a season.