About 3 years ago, I "met" 2 deers in water. It was in winter and about freezing point, no wind. I was out for a 20km paddling. on a narrow shipping channel and on the way back, about 8km still to paddle. I was in an area with vertical (metall) bank reinforcement, not real good for getting out and about 1km to the next flat bank area. Two female deers had jumped in the channel and swim and swim and swim, donīt know where to go to get out of this wet cold grave. Some sunday walkers lock over the channels "coast" which is like a fence and point out to the deers. What could, what should I do? I was out in my very narrow and tippy TM Umiak, no lines with me, no knife, at that time I even got no cell phone, thin clothing, everything wasnīt ideal for a wild deer saving action. I tried to force them to swim into a direction where one might get a grip on them, but all time they turn around and swim the wrong direction. Meanwhile I was getting real cold, my arms wet the sun was going down, the freezing air said "hello". So I decide to went on with paddling, I couldnīt to anything. Poor deers. I was behind the next curve, about 1km down the channel, I heard the fireworkers coming, a boat rescue unit came down the way and stopped at the fence of an powerstation harbour. One of the sunday walkers phoned them up. I go for them, telling I will bring them to the deers. - they got a quite small PE Dinghy with small outboarder, 3 men in it, the outboarder was hard working. But I was much faster :-)))) Donīt know what they would do on a highwater river in a "real" rescue action. Reaching the point where I left the deers, there wasnīt any deer! They decided to swim dwon the channel, funny, it was the best direction for the flat area and I find them a few 100metre downside. the fireworkers come behind me. It was funny to see how they donīt know to catch these wild animals ;-))) hard to fix them at the blank and get a hold on them. I helped to fix the deers and told the them men in the boat "no fear, only get a grip and pull them inside, its just a deer" and they do so. After few minutes they got both deers inside and they went back. I hurry up, paddling as fast I can, my arms, my whole body was cold and I was shivering. Hungry, thursty and still a long way under these circumstances. After 4km I became slow, so slow - uhhh! Back to the boathouse, first thing was a hot and loooong shower, ahhhh! After that incident I decide to get everytime some reserves with me, even on this good known channel. Normally Iīd done so, but in the small Umiak without compartements... Lesson learned. Few days later I saw in the newspaper a picture about two deers in towels, hold by fireworkers and looking quite normal, the text said "a paddler alarmed them..." Crazy world, without a cell phone, how should Iīd done that? :-)) Shit happens, but even der got lucky, from time to time. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sat Mar 15 2003 - 03:30:52 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:05 PDT