The trip home from work

[Owly055]

     This is  not a sailing story........but a boating story.    Back in 1974 to 1977, I  worked in a plywood mill in Montana in Bonner, just east of Missoula.  I had the good fortune to live on the east end of Missoula right on the bank of the Clark Fork River.  The mill I worked in was on the bank of the Blackfoot River 11 miles by water from home.   I worked  night shift, getting off between 2:30 and 3:30 AM depending on overtime.  Some of my most treasured memories are of paddling home in the dead of night in my kayak during the summer months.   A fellow I worked with would drop by, and take me and my kayak to work (I bought him gas), and at 2:30 AM, I would launch my kayak into the Blackfoot river.  About 100 yards down from my launch point was a mill dam, with a spillway of about 16', which I would have to shoot into wild turmoil below, as you might imagine.   A real wake up call, and something I dreaded every night.  I got wet, but I wore a wet suit top, and I never once flipped.   The rest of the 11 miles was a wonderful peaceful trip with a few extremely minor rapids.  I'd do it again in a heartbeat!   There is nothing like a quiet river at night.
     What I have always noticed about the "good old days", is that they always correspond to that age when we are immortal and the whole world is open to us.  Usually in our late teens or early 20's.   In those days we cut firewood miles upstream on the Clark Fork River..... My neighbor, his family, and I, and we swam it home, beaching logs below our homes, and dragging them up the bank with my 1950 Ford pickup.   I feared nothing, and the outdoors was my haven, my retreat, the source of joy and peace.
     I was never wired for fear of water.............and some have thought I was a bit crazy.   Swimming in deep water off the coast or in lakes never bothered me.  I was known to swim miles.  I've been caught in tidal rips off Kauai many times.  The initial panic dissipates quickly, and I know what I have to do, heading across the bay, and catching the current back in.  An experience off the Oregon Coast as a teen taught me about rips.  Nobody was with me.  I knew I was dead!!  Once I got over that realization, I knew that there was one chance........The sun was out, but I could not see the coastline.   I realized that if there was such a strong current taking me out, there had to be an equally strong current the other way, and I knew where it should be.  I took that gamble, and I'm here to tell about it.    That experience did not instill fear of the sea in me, it taught me a lesson that has served me many times.

                                                                                                H.W.