We should have pulled the canoe out above these waters. So this was our first baptism by the waters of the Hudson, and likely won't be our last. I stress that we were never really in danger, for all the flailing and sputtering, although in the process I did manage to hyperextend a knee, and felt none too good about that. I used my paddle as a crutch, and gingerly walked over the bank and up to a road. This will make for an interesting complication, I thought, a conjecture confirmed by Dr. Kevin Bolan at the Newcomb Medical Center, which happens to be right next door.
Canoeists are a specialty.
Our day's adventure began in quite a different mood, all tranquillity and peace. We pushed into the mists of early morning while the sun was just beginning to dance across the treetops. In short order, the Opalescent River joined force with the Hudson, the current picked up and the river deepened. Under 4 feet of tea-colored water were submerged logs, some of them there for a century, dating back to the days of the massive log drives that made the Adirondacks famous. Broad, slow Lake Sanford was used as a holding pen for millions of felled trees.