Upside down is distressing

I don’t like to see my boats upside down in the water.

It’s distressing.

When I was a kid, however, my friends and I would almost always flip my canoe. Like us, in our youth, it was unsinkable, so it didn’t really matter.

I’m still here. So is the canoe.

But as I grew older, unplanned dunkings lost their allure. If I want to get wet I go swimming.

I’ve owned a number of boats over the years, and with the exception of the canoe, none of them have ever flipped.

Until recently.

My friend E-dub and I were bass fishing out of my Hobie pedal-propelled kayaks on a small pond near the Canadian border last week when I heard a cry for help. I looked up to see E-dub clinging to the overturned hull of the red ‘yak.

I reeled in my fly line and made haste in his direction.

He was struggling to hang onto the boat. There was nothing to grab on the slick hull, and he was wearing waders with heavy wading boots. He was also tangled in fishing line and a stringer of bass.

I grabbed the rudder of the overturned boat and turned toward the bank but the wind pushed us in the opposite direction. Giving up on the pedals, I unhooked my paddle, kept a grip on E-dub’s craft, and paddling one-handed, eventually reached shallow water.

We righted the kayak, untangled the mess, and took off back down the pond to where we had parked the truck.

The kayak had flipped so quickly E-dub had no idea how it had happened. We eventually reached the conclusion that the limit of bass on a stringer tied to the side of the boat, along with the gusting wind, was to blame.

Surprisingly, nothing was lost. E-dub never let go of the rod, and all the other gear was stowed.

While loading the kayaks in the back of the truck that morning, E-dub had picked up a life jacket and asked if we needed them. I told him, “No, the kayaks won’t sink, just hang onto the boat if you fall in.”

In retrospect, that was a very stupid thing to say, but he tossed the jacket aside and off we went, two old dudes not quite as unsinkable as they once were.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]