Everything started tranquilly enough. We dropped the canoe in, and right away had a sample to gather. Bingo. Easy as pie. What could possibly go wrong after this auspicious start? (ignore the fact that this was in fact our second time at this bank...we'd forgotten to lock the car, and so 15 minutes down river had to paddle against the current...and after 15 minutes of no clay decided to grab some clay right at the start point, which we had passed by the first time)
In all honesty things went pretty well for a while. There wasn't much clay unfortunately, lots of the Miami's banks are covered with concrete debris (like those highway dividers) apparently making "stone" shorelines is considered a normal way to dispose of this sort of garbage. For a chunk of the time we were right next to the interstate, which wasn't a particularly nice place to canoe, but we started off away from it, in a nice peaceful zone, then swung towards it, then away again. Only once did we choose to explore a "tributary" or "non-main" channel around a cool little island in the morning. We chose...poorly. It turned out to NOT be an island, but rather a peninsula, so we had to backtrack 100 yards or so out of the little pool into the main stream.
At that point we'd left 75 behind, and there were good pockets of clay to gather, rather...not as many pockets to gather from, but lots of potential areas not covered with concrete debris.
Look at that poise! That skill! Look at me test the soil for clay, and then take a sample! (or at least prepare to take a sample in these photos) Have you ever seen anything like it?
In seriousness, this is the only way to do science. What a wonderful, and relaxing, method of data collection. Sure we didn't cover the 11 miles in 15 minutes like we would have by car, but you can't beat the experience (plus for the "good science brigade" we saw far more clay deposits than we could have from a car, we were able to access otherwise inaccessible points, and this would have been a possible method of traveling to clay sources utilized by the Fort Ancient). All in all...giant win for science.
But the Great Miami wasn't going to let us get off easy. Oh no. There was more in store for your intrepid explorers.
That's right...we were getting into the territory of the dreaded Danger Dam. We entertained the idea of just hitting ramming speed and gunning it, but decided against it. (we had previously utilized ramming speed for hitting the beaches, just like marines do it of course)
It was probably a good idea.
You may notice that from here on out the photographs kind of...uhm. Stop. Well, let me explain why my camera is (at least temporarily) out of commission.
There we were, at about noontime. The Great Miami? More like the pansy-ami river. We'd taken anything it could throw at us (like uhm...the time we ran out of water and had to push). Little did we know that the Nelson Narrows lay ahead of us. Ben had decided (now pay attention, this is important) to grab a bit to eat while we cruised down the river. As he was about halfway through his sandwich we had a choice to make, left or right around this little sand and gravel shoal...we chose the way that was more than 3 inches deep.
Well, it turns out the reason there wasn't so much gravel was the current here was pushing it away, but I discovered my natural ability to navigate rivers. "Stay right! We'll hit a good channel away from rocks!" That sort of thing. We sluiced through fairly well, Ben even had time to take a few more bites of his sandwich (I was looking forward to reversing roles and having my own sandwich as soon as he finished). Then...something went horribly wrong. I called that we needed to stay right, because the current was pushing us straight at this tree that had grown sideways out of the bank about a foot off the water. Somehow, despite the furious paddling which had served us so well for the previous slaloms, our efforts failed to save us.
We managed to turn and keep the canoe more or less straight as we barreled through the narrows and straight into the tree. As the bow slammed the trunk I managed to dive backwards so the tree (more or less) passed over me. For a moment I thought we were in the clear. Then Ben caught the tree, sandwich in hand, full in the face. For a moment we hung there as the water rushed past and the tree held our canoe still. Then the inevitable happened, the current pulled us slightly askew, and then with that little toehold pulled us completely sideways and dumped us over.
The good news was that the water was pretty pleasant, and pretty refreshing. My life jacket turned out to be the best 30bucks I ever spent, as I easily bobbed clear of the tree and dodged our now riderless canoe as it shot past me. And then my backpack shot past me. And then my lunch box. At about this time I was kicking my foot clear of the a limb that had come free with our canoe...then I suddenly realized that 20 pages of data collection were bobbing along the stream in my bag.
As I scrambled after my notes, hauling my bag free from the water and trying to toss it (20 extra pounds of water and all) onto a gravel shoal I saw Ben float past me, feet first, on his back, popping the last bit of sandwich into his mouth. It had stayed dry, and he had stayed cool and kept his priorities in order.
Well we gathered up all of our stuff (luckily it all floated), pulled the ol' SS Nelson upright and set back down the river. I ate my lunch, which had floated (I didn't know that it did that), and it was all good, although Ben got a scratch on his forehead, that we really hope turns into a gnarly scar, with an equally gnarly story. I thought I came through clean, but apparently I caught a tree branch on my arm as I noticed it was all torn up when I got home.
Now this is why my camera is down. It only got a tiny bit wet, but it was enough to (I hope) only ruin the batteries, the card still worked, I just hope I can get it to turn on again with new AAs. The problem is that THIS is the incident I really want pictures of...oh well.
Things went pretty well after that really, although we had to stop collecting clay as we 1) were coming to the edge of my research area of 7km from Sunwatch and 2) all my paper was wet so I couldn't write on it.
We did hit one more rough patch, Schulenburg Shoot. This time, we hit the rapids perfectly, found a deep spot, and were on top of our steering....at least until a submerged rock knocked us sideways. Once more we were at the mercy of the current, until Ben barked a crisp command "Marcus, get down!" And I threw myself to the bottom of the boat, stabilizing us with a lower center of balance and we managed to steer (backwards) through the last attempt of the Mighty Miami to defeat science.
But no, science may experience setbacks, she may unexpectedly capsize, but science can not be stopped.
My god I love my job.
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