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Tuesday, Apr. 22, 2008

Warner Robins friends endure rough waters on canoe trip

For spring break, many high school students load up some drinks in a cooler and take a road trip down to Destin, Fla., or Panama City, Fla., for a few days of lazy fun at the beach. It's a popular pastime that four intrepid Middle Georgia youngsters decided to forego.

Matt O'Neal, Skyler Edwards and Jamie Watson, all Warner Robins High School seniors, and Jamie's older brother, Jeff Watson, wanted to do something more original and exciting for their spring break.

Getting together one night, they tossed ideas around. The idea, "kind of evolved," Jamie Watson said. "At first we wanted to go to a concert. Then it went from camping to hiking and we realized hiking would be too much work. So we decided to float instead."

As the plan came together, the four young men proposed a three-day canoe trip on the Altamaha River, starting just outside Jessup at Jaycee Landing and concluding at Altamaha River Park 40 miles downriver. The trip was set to go from March 30 through April 1, as the group camped at sandbars each night. With Edwards and Jeff Watson set to join the Marines, Jamie Watson preparing for college, and O'Neal drawing from experience as a Boy Scout, they felt confident they'd be able to handle the relatively smooth current on that section of the river.

Wary friends, though, were wont to mention the ill-fated canoe trip in the 2004 film "Without a Paddle." An older generation recalled the terrifying turn of events in 1972's "Deliverance," which was ominously set in Georgia.

"We heard (the "Deliverance" theme) "Dueling Banjos" on Q-106 on the way up and it made us really think about what we were doing," Edwards said, chuckling. The four explorers were oblivious to the very real danger the song was foreshadowing in their very near future.

With the preliminary paddle pokes pulling out of Jaycee Landing, the young men were taken aback by the pastoral scene unfolding around them. "It was amazing," Jamie Watson said. "It was beautiful. It was calm and no one was around. Just the river. Great weather. There weren't any bugs on the river. It was just really, really pretty."

Edwards said he marveled at how he was getting in touch with nature in a way he'd never experienced before. Away from the complications of civilization, he said, "The only thing we cared about was making time on the river. I was really enjoying myself. It was much better than going to Pensacola or something."

Even though they said the circumstances were ideal, the river seemed mysteriously bereft of animal life. Although they would later hear from authorities of alligator sightings reported elsewhere, the boys' only creature contact was hearing the scurrying of what they thought was a raccoon.

Camping the first night, their serene contentment was interrupted by a serious bug problem.

"I've never seen mosquitoes so big in my life," Jamie Watson said. Edwards' mosquito remarks, although colorful, are not printable in a family newspaper.

The next day, the leisurely vacation shifted gears into a frantic, heart-pounding adventure. About 11 a.m., the thing they dreaded most occurred: a canoe tipped.

Edwards, who teamed up with Jeff Watson in the lead boat, said, "Me and Jeff were gliding like a well-oiled machine, hitting every bend just fine. Everything was going great." But behind them, he said, things were not going so smoothly. "Jamie couldn't get paddling down. Matt had a lack of paddling and Jamie was overpowering to the right of the river."

As the members of the lead boat were screaming at them to paddle, the rear boat was caught in some brush. In the effort of coming undone, the guys capsized the canoe.

"It was really hilarious," Jeff Watson said.

"It was the most horrifying experience of my life," Jamie Watson said.

Jamie Watson said he quickly tried to evaluate what was lost.

"We tried to swim the boat to the middle of the river but Matt was afraid of hypothermia so he made us go to shore," he said. "The only available place was marshy areas and getting into the marshy areas caused us to tip a second time, and that's when we lost the rest of our supplies. And the canoe."

Meanwhile the other canoe "got caught in the stream and went a quarter mile downriver," Edwards said. "Then we heard Matt and Jamie screaming 'Grab the canoe!' and all of a sudden it got caught in some trees coming around the bend. It came undone and we had to paddle upstream to position ourselves to grab the canoe."

As Jeff Watson and Edwards battled the current to salvage the stray vessel, Jamie Watson and O'Neal were trying to recover their clothes and food, adrift in the river.

"I had to go back in three times to get stuff," Jamie Watson said. "It really sucked going back in again."

The water temperature that day was a chilly 60 degrees. "We started a huge fire to stay warm."

Safe onshore, but stranded in the wilderness, Jeff Watson called for help.

"They were just lucky my cell phone had a signal because if it didn't, we'd have been screwed," he said. "We called for help and it immediately stopped working after that. It took almost two hours for the rescue boat to get to Skyler and me."

After a long wait, a motorboat appeared to take the marooned travelers home. Jamie Watson said he was relieved the rescuers were not angry with them.

"They were nice, not patronizing at all," he said. "They were pretty optimistic, pretty stoic. They said, ' at least we didn't have to fish your bodies out of the water.' "

Despite the unfortunate turn of events, the foursome were eager to continue on their journey.

"We would have gone on," Edwards said, "but the rescuers told us we had only gone five miles. In reality we'd actually gone 14.7 at that point."

The progress was about on target with where they should have been halfway through the second day.

Fortunately nobody was hurt.

"The only injury from tipping the canoe was an injury to our pride," Jamie Watson said. "We went to the river and came back cold, wet and defeated."

Ryan Prior is a senior at Warner Robins High School.