SwampA long time ago I got the notion to paddle the Cumbahee River in the Ace Basin all the way out to Edisto island. In my mind it was going to be a grand adventure seeing the changes in environment go from intimate fresh water swamp to salt marsh. I got some topos of the area and enlisted the help of Kurt – my kayaking mentor.

The plan we came up with was for us to put in together at a spot where the road crossed the Salkahatchee Swamp near Walterboro. He’d paddle in with me for a few hours, then turn back. In about three days time, when I got to Edisto, I’d call and he’d come down with Meg to pick me up. Great plan – right?

Well, there were a few things I didn’t take into account. Like the fact that the water was only about 2 inches deep, there was no clear channel, no current to follow, and there were so many downed trees that we couldn’t go five feet without squeezing under or pulling over one of them.

With Kurt there this was all fine, but once he turned back and I was on my own things changed. I guess I went about a quarter mile more going over and under logs and trying to get around places that looked like a tornado had come through. Then, while pulling myself over some downed trees, I almost lost my glasses. I was able to grab them as they sunk into the black murk, but that set off a panic. I had visions of me trying to sleep sitting upright in the kayak with the sleeping bag on my head upside down because there was absolutely no high ground anywhere. Or worse, turning big blurry circles in the swamp because there was no current to follow and ending up as dried out alligator food because the skeeters got all the blood. Suddenly I was really scared. I decided to turn around and I hoped I could find my way back to the car before Kurt left.

Three shots from a gun, blasts of a horn or soundings of a whistle – three of anything like this are a distress signal. I was repeating a series of three blasts on my safety whistle like I was hyperventilating and paddling as hard as I could. If I missed Kurt things would be complicated.

I made it back to the road and the car was still there. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to see it. Kurt, however, was nowhere to be seen. I could wait. After a while he came out from under the bridge looking surprised to see me. It turns out he had found an old Nash Rambler station wagon sticking up from the muck, had climbed on top of it and finished his beers. He never heard me and little orange whistle.
This story has been in my head for the last few days as a lesson in how not to embark on an adventure. This story, and remembering how my heart dropped in La Coruña Spain when the bus pulled away leaving me alone in a foreign country. These are things I don’t want to repeat.