After five hard days canoeing the Delaware, fatigue was beginning to set in. As the two canoes approached the town of Lambertville, John, Suzie, Mark and I read the sign hanging from the bridge as we drifted by. "6 People Have Drowned Attempting to Run the Rapids at Lambertville."
We knew that these rapids were classified as some of the worst on the river, but we had handled ones rated just as bad the day before. We pulled up alongside the wing dam past the town. John and I walked out on the dam to check out the rapids downstream. The river was funneled into a gap between the arms of the dam, creating a water flume between them. The speed of the current was impressive, but even more was the boulder field that lay just beyond the turbulent main flow.
Not sure if it was really the rapids itself, our depleted energies, the fact that there was no one else running the rapids, or maybe it was the words of the sign just sinking into our consciousness. There was this sinking feeling of dread and doom, just looking at those rapids. Where a day earlier, we would have taken these on without a second thought, today we were not those brave souls. Mark just refused to take on the run, which left the three of us to take the two canoes through or to port them around the rapids. John, who saved his words for something important, our strongest paddler, just nodded his head, looked at Suzie and said "let's go".
Five minutes later, after back paddling upstream and positioning themselves to take the rapids on dead center, I watched them shoot on through. They navigated the flume with no problem, but then as they approached the rock field, a boulder loomed straight in their path. John could have maneuvered around that rock any day, but today, he was sluggish and his paddle strokes seemed ineffectual. The boat didn't respond, and continued head on, straight into the boulder. Suzie at the bow, just fell forward, but somehow John got the worst of the collision, and actually flew out of the canoe. I held my breath as he disappeared beneath the white water. A long two-seconds later, he popped out of the water with one hand still on the gunnel and hoisted himself back into the boat. They made their way to the Jersey shore to bail and recover.
Later that afternoon I volunteered to run the second canoe, if John would handle the stern. He agreed, and we were off to take our chances. As we shot through the flume, huge walls of water sandwiched us between them. From my perspective, it looked like we had nothing to worry about. Just after that thought though, I found myself still seated in the canoe upright, but water over my head. There was this halting motion of the boat as it struck some submerged rock. Next thing I knew, the boat rose back up to the surface. We had somehow cleared most of the rock field below the dam and starting limping our way back to the shore. On pulling the aluminum canoe out of the water, I let out a gasp. The front bottom had been buckled in with a foot wide dent. Thoughts of not getting our deposit back raced through my mind, as John grabbed a paddle, flipping it over, slammed the end of the handle into the center of the dent. To my surprise and relief, it just popped back out, with out a trace of the dent.
Years later, I wondered how much of the problems we encountered that day were due to the rapids, and how much was due to our attitude. We were in prime condition and should have been able to handle those rapids, but I believe that our energy draining attitude predisposed us to failure. I have found that Negative Thinking can actually assure a negative outcome. It was one of life's hard lessons, but one that has helped me through many tough times since.
