More to come, soon
short story
Having fish run into you when you are on the bottom of a slough and couldn't see anything is scary, but one thing happened that was even scarier. One day, I went looking in a sharp bend in an old slough, the main slough in our part of the pool. It was there before they built the dams. It used to be 30 feet deep or so, but had filled in over the years, in the inside bend, especially. I pulled into the lilypads on the inside corner, thinking I would work my way into the deep part from there. It is better (and safer) than jumping straight out of the boat into deep water, with al the gear attached and not knowing for sure what is underneath you. I dumped myself out of the boat into mud up over my knees, and as I worked my way into the slough, it got deeper and deeper. When I had about 10 feet of water over my head, the mud was up to my waist, and bubbles from all the decomposed leaves and trash that had gathered in the bend over the years was burbling up all around me. I finally decided enough was enough, and popped the release on my weight belt and pulled the regulator out of my mouth and dropped it. Normally, the wetsuit I was wearing would pop my up to the surface like a cork. But there I was, ten feet under water, no air supply, and not moving. An image of them finding me down there looking like I had been planted flashed through my mind. I usually let the air hose feed through my hand when I rose, so I still had a grip on it, so I stayed calm, and pulled my weight belt around so I could reach the regulator and put it back in my mouth. Then I worked my legs free and popped up to the surface like I was supposed to. I learned a valuable lesson that day.
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this page was last edited on: 09/16/08