Page 150 - "Mississippi in the 1st Person" - Michael James Stone (Demo/Free)

The Night was fast approaching. So far I had not really stayed up at night as I was most of the
time exhausted and fell asleep quickly.

Tonight would not be one of those nights I had to stay up.

Getting into my “upper deck” as I called it where I had easy access items I felt might be need-
ful while I was paddling, I took the camp light headlamp out and donned it from the
“Kayackanoe”.

With headlight on I pulled the yellow Intex Explorer K-2 past the leaning and swamped
“Eloquence” and trudged the 30 or more yards to the landing I had found and tied off the kay-
ak to the shore.

The current here was stronger because of the shallowness and narrowness of the creek bed.

Turning back to go to the stricken Sea Eagle 370 I knew there were some causalities I would
find.

The boat load had indeed shifted. And while the “cargo boxes,” black and yellow container

boxes I used to store goods and gear, and stack on top of, had not spilled, they had water in
them..

Much of the stacked cargo had gone in the river and I saw some of it in the bushes and a few
pieces floating and even some down stream from me.

Starting there I went after my midnight “snipe hunt” looking for my cargo and gear strung out
on the Mississippi Creek Bed.

One item I found was one my extra large cargo tarps and rather than collect more, I took it to

camp and laid to out to dry and also stack gear on.

Slogging back to the shoreline collecting gear as I went I slowly paced myself getting every-
thing moved to the cargo tarp till it being covered I grabbed my yellow utility tarp I had

dragged both kayaks over Vekin Portage Trail with.

Stress aftermath had taken me to auto pilot and I didn’t think while doing grunt work. This was
pure recovery and it meant just move items from point a to point b without considerations.

When I finished the loose gear as much as I could find, I went back to the Sea Eagle “the Elo-

quence.”

Magnificent as the kayak was, it even looked great in it’s current predicament.

First I took the Cargo boxes and carefully dumped water out of them, then one at a time floated
each box and walked them one by one back to camp where I offloaded the contents onto the

tarps.

Hurrying would not help and so while the water was cold now and the air a chill I paced it.