The Story of the Capsized Canon - A/K/A I Have No Camera

Well, I didn’t tell this story for a while for fear of having to admit the truth – I did something really dumb.  I’ve got a good reason for things happening the way they did so I’ll tell the story and let you decide for yourself whether you might have handled things differently.

For a year or more I’ve been dying to go on a twilight canoe ride.  One of our nearby state parks offers these guided canoe tours periodically and it just sounded so romantic.  I reserved a spot for me and the dear hubby and we marked our calendars and waited for the special date to roll around. It just so happened that I had a Habitat build day scheduled the same day so I got home from the build, showered, did my hair, got all gussied up dressing with a blue and white nautical theme - cute like, you know.  I grabbed my camera and all the other electronic devices one simply can’t live without and we headed to the state park. 

We took the correct exit but...

This is where things started going wrong.  We were using Google maps and somehow the Google confused the location of the state park with a tennis park with a similar name located in another county.  We got to the tennis park and someone familiar with this reoccurring Google map error kindly gave us directions but by this time dear hubby and I were late.  Very late.  The guided tour started at 7:00 on the dot.  We finally arrived to the bait house at the state park and we jumped out of the car with all of our things leaving the car unlocked, windows opened, etc., trying to figure out if we might still be able to go canoeing. By now I KNOW you know what happens.

A nice ranger said the tour finally left without us and they were about 10 minutes ahead of us but if we wanted to try to catch up, he’d pull a canoe off the racks for us.  I’d been waiting a long time for this moment so of course, I wanted to get in that canoe. 

All was calm until we came along

We were doing okay canoeing across the lake and we were actually enjoying the evening even without a guide when suddenly a guide headed in our direction calling my name.  The guide canoe patiently waited for us to catch up to lead us through a tunnel.  This is where the trouble began.  Oh, did I remember to add that I can't swim?

So much fun! Until....

 I’m still not sure how it happened but I’ve replayed the moment over and over again in my mind.  We’ve had a ton of rain this summer in Georgia so the water levels are high and the roof of the tunnel was lower than it should be. When my husband yelled “duck” I ducked.  I think he did too and the next thing I remember is I was underwater and a canoe was on top of me!  We wiggled our way out from under everything and I grabbed my camera trying to hold it above water but it was too late.  My brand new Canon had been submerged as had all of our other electronic devices.  We managed to get to a shore to flip our canoe, get back in and canoe back to the bait house.  By then I had no interest in trying to see the sunset or the moonlight. My husband and I were both sopping wet from top to bottom and I just wanted to get into dry clothes.

So for now, I have no camera for blogging and once again I’ll be saving up to do some camera shopping. 

Oh by the way.  I did manage to take a couple of photos before the mishap and they survived. Thought you might enjoy them.  This summer has been incredibly memorable but his was one excursion I’m happy to forget!!