Snakes in a boat

I know it does not really sound as exciting as snakes on a plane, but when you experience it in person, snakes are exciting. Especially the surprise snakes. We experienced two of the surprise ones on the river.

With river snakes you have to be mindful of the venomous ones. You know, the ever dreaded cottonmouth or as I like to call it, the "Oh, S*#t" snake. It is the most common venomous water snake.

If I had time, I would tell you the tale from my childhood when my dad killed a huge cottonmouth on the bank of a river with just some rocks. It is a great story. Ask me sometime and I will tell you all about it.

But this time we had a snake sighting up river and notice from other swimmers to bale quickly. And so we did. It is really funny to see some one get notice that a snake is coming their way and then see them high stepping out of up to 2.5 feet of water to shore.

Go ahead, get up, try it. Remember that you have water resistance to confront. Oh, don't forget to have a beer or cool beverage in hand. Oh, don't forget to grab what ever young child is near you as you plow to shore.

That being said. We all stood on shore and watched this long black snake swim gracefully through the water, fairly close to shore. He tootled along until he got a little too close and someone felt the urge to throw a rock at his head. I believe that he has had previous snake killing experience because he hit dead on first shot. He took a couple more rocks for good measure and them threw him to shore to investigate.

My crew couldn't get down there to take a look fast enough! I did not go. Neither did baby O. The report was that he was probably a cottonmouth. I am not buying that at this time. But, it makes for a good story.

Roughly a week later, several of us went canoeing again. I believe that it was our 3rd canoe trip and we were all feeling a bit big for our britches. We were having to paddle in some pretty strong winds and were doing quite well for ourselves. This trip the canoes lined up as so:
Brad, our oldest, and our baby O in one canoe
My sister, her husband (also known as my brother in law) and little E in another canoe
My brother, his wife (also known as my sister in law) and their oldest son in the third canoe
Me and my dad in the last canoe

We all did extremely well with the winds and some challenging rapids. Then we were hit from the side with an unexpected wind which blew dad and I into some low hanging trees. Everyone knows that you will occasionally find snakes hanging out in trees. So, always look before going under them. Well, we didn't have time to look as we were shielding ourselves from being taken out by the trees. Once we were through and had gathered ourselves, we made our plan to get back into the stream when dad yells, " SNAKE IN THE BOAT!"

Yes, I said a few choice words. Remember I did not have children in my boat. I looked around and it was coming my way. If we had a child in our canoe, the snake would have been on the child. I have no idea what I would have done. Perhaps I would have done some superhero magic and flung the snake to the other side of the river while managing not to tip the boat and continue to paddle in the right direction. Maybe, maybe not.

Imagine if you can the shape of a canoe. I quickly balanced myself on the tip of the front of the canoe waiting to see if I needed to jump ship. I didn't, somehow dad got the snake out with his paddle. I don't know how, but he did. I sat back down, said a prayer, said a few more choice words and we went on our way.

Can you guess what type of snake it was?
Wrong, it was just a common northern water snake. I think it was still out to get me. I could see it in his eyes.

We will go to the river again in about a week or so. Maybe if you are lucky, I'll have another snake story or two. If I am lucky, I won't.

Till then...
Happy canoeing.