The Canoe
Being Water-Logged, Settled Below The Surface,
The High Points Of The Ends Occasionally
Emerging From The Water.
Other heavy seas followed
the first, one of which striking me as high as my
head and shoulders, turned both the canoe and
canoeist upside-down.
A Capsize in Delaware Bay (100K)
Kicking myself free of the canvas deck, I
struck out from under the shell, and quickly
rose to the surface. It was then that the words
of an author of a European Canoe Manual came
to my mind: "When you capsize, first right the
canoe and get astride it over one end, keeping
your legs in the water; when you have crawled
to the well or cockpit, bale out the boat with
your hat." Comforting as these instructions
from an experienced canoe traveller seemed
when reading them in my hermitage ashore, the
present application of them (so important a
principle in Captain Jack Bunsby's log of life)
was in this emergency an impossibility; for my
hat had disappeared with the seat-cushion and
one iron outrigger, while the oars were floating
to leeward with the canoe.
The boat having turned keel up, her great
sheer would have righted her had it not been for
the cargo, which settled itself on the canvas
deck-cloth, and ballasted the craft in that
position. So smooth were her polished sides that it
was impossible to hold on to her, for she rolled
about like a slippery porpoise in a tideway.
having tested and proved futile the kind
suggestions of writers on marine disasters, and
feeling very stiff in the icy water, I struck out in an
almost exhausted condition for the shore.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 97 of 310
Words from 26458 to 26738
of 84867
