Quicksand!

There is nothing quite like jumping into soupy, bottomless mud, with a 35 pound lead weight in tow. I’m probably lucky I didn’t just go right under.

This all started when I remembered, at the last minute, that I wanted to catch the low tide at 16:00, today. It was already 16:00 when I remembered. I didn’t actually get to the mud until almost 17:00, so I missed at least half of the low tide.

I packed lite in the camera department, but I drug along the 35 pound lead weight, so I could get dragged under the bottomless muck. The animated gif on the left is a few frames from the video camera from when I first jumped in with the weight. I was prepared to fight to regain the surface, but the weight didn’t quite drag me completely under … at least, not before I had some time to struggle, and gasp for air. The video won’t be very long. You’re probably lucky I’m even here to tell the story. 🙂

Once I finished my quicksand scene, I detached my weight and dragged myself out of that mud hole. The tide was already coming in, so I moved over to a nearby mud hole that has a few inches higher elevation. The other mud hole was awesome. The mud was thick, warm, and inviting. It just wrapped around me and sucked me under. I used the weight there, also, just for fun (off camera). Once I dragged myself out of that, I went to retrieve the weight, but the knot I tied slipped (I neglected to tie a bowline, even though I knew I should … putting mud on a nylon rope is like greasing a Teflon pan) and the weight sank deep into the quagmire. I dove down for it, but I could not reach it, so I grabbed my breathing tube from the boat, which was about 8 feet away, and I dove back in, headfirst, pulling myself deeper and deeper, and groping blindly in the thick mud, until I snagged the weight and dragged it back to the surface. I couldn’t lose my lead weight. It would be hard to replace. It’s too bad I didn’t get video of the rescue.

Finally, I grabbed a quick video of me sinking in that body swallowing mud, without the weight. I’m not sure how that video will come out, because the sun came out while I was recording. It is kind of ironic that the sun may have ruined that shot, because a few minutes later it started raining. I got all of my gear into it’s protective cases and got myself ready to return to civilization. The tide was coming in fast, so I had no problem paddling out. I got cleaned up, as the rain got heavier. By the time I realized I had left my boat shoes at the muddying spot, it was pouring down. I paddled the short distance back to where I left my shoes, fetched them, and paddled back to my car. As it turns out, I was in the only spot in the county where it rained. I returned home, not 2 miles away, and it hadn’t rained a drop, there.