Wow! Lucky waders. Luckily they didn't Fill water.
The wader belt was cinched reasonably tight at my waist, and the wader top was tied tight. The waders still took in a fair amount of water. When I finally crawled onto shore, I was able to stand up, but I couldn't walk because my feet and lower legs were weighted down by the water in my waders. I unstrapped and let most of the water out. Then I was able to walk to my truck.
Ken, that's scary. Glad you and your partner are ok.
Randy. -- the good thing, at our advanced age, is that I'm in pretty good physical condition due to yoga and working our small farm. After I lost grip on the canoe, I had to swim extremely hard for 15-20 minutes to get out of the whirlpools before I was able to reach shore. The scariest part was leaving my young partner as I was swept downstream.
The other good thing is, through good training, all of us stayed very calm and confident through the whole episode. We all had the proper safety equipment. We knew what to do. Panic, and/or lack of training, would have probably been deadly. This really goes for a friend, my age, and the 15 year-old cousin of my canoe mate who was in his canoe. They got the scene stabilized in a very safe manner, moved on to safety and stability. Shortly thereafter we were all able to make a safe recovery.
