Link: All Gulf Shores Beaches Closed After 4th Drowning In 24 Hours
- Thread starter TideMan09
- Start date
Hard news, TideMan. No matter how much you know the reality of these dangers, it's always difficult to see a fellow man die from them.
Exactly..Especially when it's a Grandfather going into the water in an attempt to save his granddaughter..That's a tough pill to swallow reading that..
One thing my mother beat into our heads as kids when went down to the beach was NEVER get in the water on a red flag. Sadly, these people learned the hard way the warning flags are there for a reason.
It surprises me that, in this day and time, people don't know how to get out of a rip tide. You never try to swim against it towards the shore. You'll tire yourself out and there's no way to win. The escape is to swim parallel to the beach until you're out of it. They're always very narrow - part of why they're so strong - and you'll be out of quickly...
having lifeguarded and taught swimming for many years in my youth, plus my many years of ww kayaking i am well aware of the dangers of water and always treat it with respect. it amazes me that so many folks will hop right in a pool, lake, the ocean, a river without a basic comprehension of water safety. i see so many stories like the one posted above where the "rescuer" is the one who ends up drowning. its tragic, but it is also very preventable.
I don't think I knew you were a kayaker. I took the first low volume kayak down the Grand Canyon...
yes, many years until i had to have back surgery. my last big K1 hurrah back in 2000 involved a road trip to the green narrows, then up to the russell fork for a few days and back down for a weekend of tallulah gorge releases. lots of fun for a last outing, but it got a little dicey running the russell fork with back spasms
i tried to switch to C1 and did for a bit, but not being a massochist, i gave that up and switched to ultramarathon running
My family and I were in Panama City beach a couple years back when the remains of a hurricane out in the gulf were reaching the beach. They had the beaches "red flagged" because the tide was pretty bad. My daughters (aged then 7 & 9), my wife, and I just sat on the beach and the kids played in the sand and basically just got our feet wet as I wouldn't let them go in. There was a nice family about 20 yds down the beach with two girls about my daughters age. We briefly spoke with the family, and my girls played a little with their daughters. I noticed they were letting their kids out in the water further than I'd go myself considering the conditions. My kids saw that and started nagging for me to let them go out further, to which I refused. As a compromise, we left the beach and went swimming in the pool at the condo.
Later that afternoon I saw a commotion down at the beach and learned that one of the girls got swept out by the current, and the father jumped in to save her. In the end the little girl was rescued, but the father drowned. That was one time I hated to tell my girls "I told you so"..
Later that afternoon I saw a commotion down at the beach and learned that one of the girls got swept out by the current, and the father jumped in to save her. In the end the little girl was rescued, but the father drowned. That was one time I hated to tell my girls "I told you so"..
What put me out of it happened in the early '90s. I was playing in Hell Hole on the Ocoee and some idiot speared me in the side, breaking four ribs and overlapping the bottom one. I spent about eight hours in the Cleveland Hospital, undergoing kidney tests, and then had to go back to the camper at Greasy Creek - too late to drive home. I had to rent a hospital bed for 4 weeks with power assist to sit up. I tried kayaking again and I was OK on the 'Chucky, but, when I tried the Ocoee again, a rogue one-man rafting guide ran over me in Double Suck and I had to roll out from under his raft. That did it. I took up tandem canoeing with the wife.yes, many years until i had to have back surgery. my last big K1 hurrah back in 2000 involved a road trip to the green narrows, then up to the russell fork for a few days and back down for a weekend of tallulah gorge releases. lots of fun for a last outing, but it got a little dicey running the russell fork with back spasms
i tried to switch to C1 and did for a bit, but not being a massochist, i gave that up and switched to ultramarathon running
I knew who Calloway was but not personally. My last several boats were Dancers. The one I took down the GC was a little Seda Climax, Kevlar and epoxy. It got torn in two while I was running the Ocoee at flood. I took the halves home and put it back together. I sold it to friend and she used it several years. Funny, the last Dancer I had got its tail bent up trying to fit through a 3' slot through an undercut on the Gauley, right below Sweet's Falls. I thought I'd made the eddy, until I looked over and all my friends were jumping up and down, pointing to the undercut. I knew I didn't want to go through there in the boat, so I exited. It was black for a long time under there and I expected to die, since that's the way most people die on the Gauley, but I popped out downstream. I looked downstream and there floated the Dancer in an eddy, tail up in the air like a scorpion. I pulled it out and jumped up and down on it and got it straightened out, except for a crease behind the cockpit. I later sold it to the same girl I'd sold the Climax to...
yes, i know that undercut well and always avoided it
. luckily i only folded one boat and it was on the chattooga. i was trying to catch one of the small eddies in jawbone (the one across the curler from decap rock) and i came flying into it off of the wave and the nose of my boat (a prijon hurricane) got stuck in one of the potholes on the bank while the middle of my boat grabbed a rock just beneath the surface out in the current. i had my head just above the surface and was able to get the attention of my friends downstream and they had to come pull me out, then it took a while and a few folks to get the boat freed up. it wasn't too scary while it happened because of the adrenaline, but i got a little wigged out on the lake paddle to the takeout (the safety meeting after sock 'em dog helped the anxiety a bit ). the boat had popped back into shape by the time i got back to atlanta and i continued to paddle it for a few more years before selling it.
telling the stories around the campfire while passing a bottle and occasionally other stuff was almost as fun as experiencing the stories.My kayaking tales really only make sense to another kayaker...
i still have a couple of nice shots of me; one from the green narrows and one from the "spout" at great falls, that my wife lets me keep up on the wall in our house. it helps with reminiscing
what no X-rays ?telling the stories around the campfire while passing a bottle and occasionally other stuff was almost as fun as experiencing the stories.
i still have a couple of nice shots of me; one from the green narrows and one from the "spout" at great falls, that my wife lets me keep up on the wall in our house. it helps with reminiscing
some nice POV shots of center and MD lines at great falls (not me ) it was nice living up there because you could just do laps on the different lines when the water was right. the C&O canal tow path was on the MD side of the river so it was an easy walk back up at the end of the run.
) it was nice living up there because you could just do laps on the different lines when the water was right. the C&O canal tow path was on the MD side of the river so it was an easy walk back up at the end of the run.
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