Pictures By Alan

At first we thought we would be able to tow it. Unfortunately, waterlogged it weighed a few hundred pounds. It was dead weight that went where the current took it, and took us along - a kind of floating anchor, impossible to control, sometimes surging ahead, sometimes hanging back. We abandoned hope of salvaging it after some nasty trial and error. Even in calm water it was hard to tow. In even a small rapid, it was downright dangerous.

So it was Evan and Alan and One Kayak now, with seven miles to go. It's a good thing we're both pretty good at balancing, because our skills (or at least, my skill) were (was) pushed to the limit. With two people on one kayak we were far too low in the water. All the same we made pretty good time, and the current and wind were generally with us. We had just a few wrecks, the worst when we side-swiped a huge cypress root ball and I got a small breath of water - burns like fire.