Modern Vespa

That's kind of my by-line these days.

I was ambivalent about sharing this, but then an old friend of mine (same age as well) has been seeing me professionally for some aches and pains returned today with a tale of crashing his bike shortly after I left for vacation. He'd seen a parked car ahead, was checking his mirror for traffic and misjudged distance and ran into the parked car anyway. One less (fairly expensive) bike in the world and some nice bruises.

So, anyway, meanwhile, I'm vacationing on a rented house on a small lake with my wife's family. There's a canoe amongst the choices at the dock, so I decide I'm going out. Invited my BIL along, who decided to go for it. Life vest choices were sparse, but I managed to sort out two basic 'adult" ones. I was waiting in the canoe, my SIL and wife were helping him sort out his preserver which didn't seem to fit well, but I couldn't see much other than he finally got clipped in.

So off we go...getting away from shore there's a bit of a breeze, stirring up the water enough that I needed to quarter into the waves. No biggy, but took some attention to keep the canoe pointed, and a bit more work as he was an inexperienced paddler. After a bit decided it was more work than fun, and headed back. Realizing we were going to pass the dock, I headed too far off our line with the waves and swamped. I'm not even sure how it happened...next thing I knew I was fully underwater and trying to get back to the canoe. My BIL is struggling a bit more, and not really answering my questions. I suspect that foreign language skills suck under duress. Though "Are you okay?" is in his vocabulary.... But he's got a life vest and a canoe to cling to, so not really worried.

After trying to right the canoe a few times (not easy when your partner isn't experienced or talking much) I decided to just push us to shore. Then I heard sirens... F#*k. My wife panicked. She probably wasn't wrong, but I didn't see anything worrisome, but then again she's never capsized before or spent much time in the water anyway. I decide we're going to have to get the fully swamped canoe back ourselves, not sure what my BIL can contribute as he's pretty incommunicado. As we get closer to shore, the emergency guys are waiting on the dock, I tell them we're okay (though I had doubts about my BIL whose vest had slipped off somewhere along the way but still in his arms).

What I'd assumed was a sand bottom turned out to be muck (I was on the other end of the lake last year which was sand....), so once I hit bottom, it really wasn' there...and towards the end I got mired up to my knee with one leg and eventually "crawled" to shore.

Anyway, we're all alive, so I guess that's a good thing. Definitely would do a few things differently, like maybe not going out in the first place. I would have definitely checked his vest myself, and probably done a bit of emergency briefing, and found out what his prior experience was, but going through translation for all of that was a bit of a deterrent.

Lessons learned.
Done anything dumb lately?

Well, in my mind: Dumb means you don't know any better, Stupid is you know better but do it anyway. Stupid - yes - I rebuilt the staircase in my house a few months ago and pushed way harder than I should have. My back was already feeling bad for the last year and a half, but I plowed thru anyway to get it done in a reasonable time. My spinal fusion surgery is 7:AM this Wednesday. Top that.

Thanks for clarifying. I've done both!

Good luck on the surgery. It's no small thing. Hope outcomes are good....especially riding!

Thank you, I'm hoping riding may happen by Christmas.

Sounds like an experience that could lead to a meaningful uptick in good judgement.

I'll just refer you back to your quote on the signature line of your posts.

EDIT: To answer your question. I've done lots of stupid/dumb stuff. Most of it involving speed and PTWs. Or misjudging my skills as a mechanic. Those were all learning experiences that made me a better mechanic, but sometimes costly

Sure, rub it in, this whole riding thing on Christmas.

When I was a kid growing up in SE Florida, we always went to the beach to surf on Christmas, any took pictures to send to my mother's relatives in the Milwaukee area. It was payback for all the snow skiing and ice skating pictures they sent us.

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

Considering the potential for disaster, I'd done relatively well with BWCA and Quetico trips. Not without occasional excitement, but no harrowing tales.

I still own a canoe. Barely used in the last decade, I think it's time to let it go. If I want to go, I can always rent one...

Umm, yeah, I forgot about that.

My dad told me about he and his brother Keith spending a week in the Boundry Waters when they were young. Keith was 15 and my dad was 13 and they were by themselves!! This would have been in 1948. Can you imagine that today?! My grandparents would have been arrested for neglect. It was a different time.

Bob Copeland I have asked you repeatedly to please STOP posting stock photos to Modern Vespa. It is a serious copyright liability. I have removed your entire post, and will continue to remove any posts that contain stock photos from here on out.

We had a canoe as a kid and my older brother would strap it to the top of his car and away we would go without "adult" supervision. That old aluminum Smoker Craft was a beast and you could not sink it (we "tried" a couple of times).

We were both pretty experienced paddlers and I had been out on our sailboat since I was an infant.

I do recall we joined a canoe/kayak race on the Ohio River north of Louisville. I was 12 at the time and my older brother was 17. I was by far the youngest participant and neither of us had to submit parental approval. This would have been in 1982...different times indeed.