​Blown away

[Guest]

Abandon tent

Not my story, but friend Joel was doing a circumnavigation of the Chesapeake Bay and was camped with a companion on an exposed sandbar.

He awoke to his companion bellowing “Abandon tent, abandon tent!”

A mini derecho had swept across the sandbar, uprooted his friend’s tent and rolled it into the bay shallows with said friend still inside. Joel tells it better.

His stories from that bay circumnavigation alone are worthy of a book. He didn’t just circumnavigate the Chesapeake Bay; he opted to go up the Atlantic coast and around Delaware Bay as well.

Delaware Bay is the world’s largest spawning area for Horseshoe crabs. He happened to camp on a sandy beach during the May moon phase prime for that spawning and awoke to find his tent being slowly collapsed by giant creepy crawlies.

https://www.google.com/search?q=del...ei=zHA8WOrWFYWamQG935gg#imgrc=m0LRiICk5igtRM:

That would be the stuff of nightmare for the Ostraconophobic.

 

[snapper]

Two quick stories; one happened to me and the other to one of my canoes. The personal story happened on a college trip where we paddled to an island off the coast of Charleston, SC one spring break. We got out there and set up our Timberline tents on the beach before going off for a hike on the back side of Capers Island. When we got back the one young lady who decided to stay behind was crying and totally upset. There were also NO tents. When we finally got Connie to calm down she told us that a huge wind blew up and sent the tents spiraling down the beach while she was lying in the sun. She ran after them but couldn't catch any of them. We looked down the beach and say 3 green dots in the distance; our tents. Well, we got the fastest runners in our group a running and eventually caught up with them. We brought them back, WEIGHED them down, and then enjoyed the rest of our trip. It was the last time I did a trip like that without sand stakes.

The other trip has to do with when I lent an acquaintance a canoe; a really nice We-No-Nah "Sundowner" for his trip to Cranberry Lake in the Adirondacks. For those of you who don't know this particular body of water, it is known for its windy conditions. I warned him about that and suggested that he pull the canoe up each night and stash it above the tree line. At the very least I suggested he tie it to something. Well, let's just say he didn't heed my warning. A few days after I thought he'd have called me to return the canoe I ended up calling him. He hemmed & hawed but eventually admitted that the night was so still he figured there'd be no problem with leaving the canoe on the beach. In the middle of the night a huge windstorm blew in and sent the canoe, end over end, down the cobble stone beach. He said he and his son duct taped the entire hull and then his son just bailed water all the way back to the launch where his car was parked. I never did see what remained of that canoe (he was too embarrassed to let me see it) but he gave me a check to cover the cost of a new one so all was square in the end; although his wife still hasn't let him forget about his indiscretion.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[frozentripper]

Steve...

...we saw what I call a whirlygig, a little tornado-like spiral of wind coming towards us across the sand. It was picking up enough sand, leaves and detritus that we could clearly see it advance...

This happened once when I was canoeing.... it was a glassy calm day shortly after ice-out, quiet enough so you could hear everything. I was enjoying the sunny spring warmth on the water, paddling through a mostly silent landscape so that all that could be heard was... sluuurp... dripdripdripdripdrip..... sluuurp... dripdripdripdripdrip. And the occasional thump of the paddle on a gunwale. Very nice... silence, cosmic blue sky, sunlight.

After about a half hour, a roaring noise started in a deciduous forest about a kilometer away... it sounded like strong wind and eventually a whirlwind started picking up dead leaves off the forest floor. It moved onto the lake and got closer.. that was a little alarming, wondering how big is this thing going to get. On the water the disturbance it created may have been about thirty feet across and it was strong enough to pick water up off the surface into the twister shape. The whirlwind only lasted a minute or two then died away. But still, this was enough to add something edgy to the day, something very different had happened and was there anything else waiting out there?

The other time I got to see whirlwinds on the water was when paddling on the lee side of a ridge, in the calm wind shadow on a long narrow lake (Grand lake in Algonquin). On the opposite windy shore, waves were crashing into the rocks, wind gusts bending and twisting pine trees wildly. Several times small whirlwinds formed at the edge of the wind shadow near the canoe, strong enough to pick water up off the surface. They only lasted several seconds but they were close enough to spray water into the canoe. Very enjoyable to paddle for several hours in the sheltered wind shadow in the middle of all this chaos going on only a short distance away.

I've enjoyed the sound of wind at night while staying awake in the tent, especially good is wind moaning through red pines which seem to have their own kind of sound, and even a light wind will get them going. Or wrapped up securely in the warm sleeping bag while the cold fall wind rises and falls in volume and fury outside, rising at times with gusts building gradually to a deep howling roar, then dropping off slowly until the next strong gust comes in and takes hold of the trees.

Yes, this has been long-winded, my apologies...