On a trip down the Basswood River with a novice kayaker, we were lining down rapids instead of portaging.  She was having a hard time lining her boat and walking along the ledgerocks and finally dropped her rope.  We weren't at the next rapids yet so I, being still in my boat, chased it down and got the rope to her.  Not, unfortunately, before I was caught in the tow of water that would pull me down over the drop in the rapids.  Quickly deciding I had no alternative I paddled like mad to gain speed and went over the rapids, with no prior preparation.  Luckily it was a low water time of year so it wasn't too wild.  I bottomed out on one rock, but not hard enough to hurt my kayak and made it through upright and mostly dry  .

DB: is this the one you were thinking of?

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I do think there is yet another similar thread here someplace.

Your dad was indeed lucky Drewfus!  I was up in Wabikimi, way back in.  Nature called for my friend, and back in the bush he went.  In just a few minutes he came crashing out of the woods (I've never seen him move so fast.)  Turns out he dug his hole over a nest of ground bees.  Didn't know it til too late.  He had 27 bites, from his legs to his head.  Bees were chasing him out of the woods!  Fortunately, he wasn't allergic, but ever since, I carry an Epi pen! 

prouboy

I know your not the only paddlers that did the same thing
One of the first time's I met QD, it was with the 3 other guys I used to trip with. While in Dave's Outfitter shack, paying our bill and getting fishing licenses and paddles, one of the guys picked up the "new" bent shaft paddle and was doing a "air" paddle demo of it.

Dave started laughing and told him that he had it backward
Sad thing was, the next day on Beaverhouse, that guy and another one, Insisted on using them backward, arguing that it "seemed" better and that Dave didn't know what he was talking about

Another reason it was time for me to become a solotripper

Gimp -   That's close, and useful (thanks) but I thought there was a longer one that made me a bit uncomfortable as a lot of things listed were, well, arguable.

Hey Jimbo - While I associated the backwards bent concept with you, I had thought you had just seen it somewhere. (Mine has a definite power face so it was obvious.)

A friend of mine, strong paddler, always kept his stroke for way to long and would even dig in at the end way past his hips. We'd bob down the lake and perhaps I'm not good at constructive criticism or he's really not good at accepting it. I finally gave up and my girlfriend and I bought him a BB bent for his 30th birthday. (She was a great bow paddler) Problem solved.

That reminds me of another unfortunate incident I not like to repeat. Her and I did a rather long day of paddling towards the end of a trip in May. The distance wasn't anything special but it was cold, rainy windy.... She had handled snow quite well in the past and our destination was THE favorite campsite of a friend of mine. This was back when descriptions/directions didn't even include maps much less waypoints. The part of the description I remember most was "keep going until you think you went to far and it's a little past that." Something like that anyway.

We paddled around quite a while until the clouds finally ripped open and just dumped on us. We called it quits and took the nearest campsite saying tomorrow's another day. She set up the tent and I the tarp, hung food and played with a belligerent snapper for a while.

I finally wondered what she was up to so I went to the tent: "Hey, are you sleeping?" The answer I received could best be defined as a whimper and a scary sounding one at that.

I don't remember how it went down but I opened the tent to find her sitting in the middle with everything piled high around her and she's crying and mumbling about there being water in a corner.

I wiped up most of what little water there was with a snot rag while asking where the towel was to give her something to do. Some Snickers followed a long hug and basic encouragement. Hot coco followed that and a freeze dried and blazing fire finally got her out of the tent and after fried fish she wasn't shivering anymore.

We found the campsite we were originally looking for the next day. It would have been perfect the day before. Other than the fireplace it was nothing special beyond the rather old garbage heap in back. It was a reedy swamp so the location was pretty awful IMO. The man did like to cook though so....