A beautiful spring weekend in North East Tennessee, camping with the family on the bank of the Obey River just below Dale Hollow Dam. A weekend filled with good food, camp fire stories and trout fishing. The weather was absolutely perfect, mid 70’s during the day and 50’s at night. We decided to leave the kayaks at home for this trip and opted for waders and bank fishing. After we arrived Friday and saw the generator schedule for the weekend those plans were changed to fishing the feeder creek from the hatchery. They were running two generators wide open all weekend. To put that in perspective, that is 4,700 cubic feet of water per second.
Saturday morning, just finished breakfast and sitting around the fire drinking coffee. Kids riding their bikes along the campground roads. Then all of a sudden our peaceful weekend was interrupted. Someone was running towards the river yelling help, with panic in her voice she yelled someone is in the water. Immediately we all went running towards the river along with about 7 other people from nearby campsites. There we found and older couple in a tandem kayak clinging to a tree about 20 foot from the bank in 58 degree water. Thankfully they were both wearing life jackets. Through a group effort we were able to throw them line and pull the one at a time safely to the bank. With quick thinking and a couple of people with medical training and cold water kayaking experience, we were able to get them dry and warmed back up. We talked about what happened, why it happened and why they were still here to talk about it.
Come to find out they had just purchased the kayak used two day prior. It was a cheaper sit on top tandem kayak that was not rated for their combined wight and gear. It was there first time out and had no knowledge of the river or generators. We also discovered, when we pulled the kayak from the river, it had a hole in it somewhere and was full of water. This made for a bad situation to become potentially deadly. The only smart choice they made was to put on their life jackets. This choice most likely saved their lives that day. The situation could have ended a lot differently.
The weekend ended uneventfully, with lots of stories told, food eaten and a few fish caught. This weekend allowed for some reflection, seeing firsthand why I always have my life jacket on when kayaking even in shallow water. The reason why I insist on anyone on the water with me have theirs on as well. Make sure you know the water, the water conditions and your equipment. The first camping trip of the season in the books.