- Jul 26, 2002
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Who has experience with Gators in Florida? (Or any other place, really?)
I had an interesting event happen the other day. The wife, me and another couple decided to go canoeing over the weekend. The other couple we were with weren't the best canoers ever and had a little accident. They flipped! I don't really know how it happened, but it did.
Now this river we were on has gators all over it. Not more than 15 minutes prior there was a real nice size gator we saw jump in the water and swim under our canoe. It wasn't our intention to go swimming in the water!
So my two friends end up in the water (along with all of our stuff!) and start freaking out. The canoe quickly gets flooded to the point that they can't flip it back over. We were in a narrow, heavily tree'd area. Lots of growth near the edges of the water, mucky seaweedy type stuff. The current was also surprisingly strong. The guy friend recently had surgery and wasn't in peak physical shape to deal with this situation. The girl friend was freaking out. She was scared of the gators and wasn't having a fun time trying to hang onto the canoe/remain above water/not die.
So the wife and I paddled up to them as fast as possible, stop the canoe real close and I jump in. I helped both of them get into our canoe (without them flipping that one!) and then I go after their canoe. I quickly realize I'm not going to be able to flip this back over in the water. I then started swimming back to our canoe, upstream against a pretty strong current. I really underestimated the difficulty here. I finally get back to our canoe and we all get situated into a cramped canoe. We head downstream to rescue our other canoe/gear and after loading as much as we can into the good canoe I hop back in the water and attempt to maneuver the capsized canoe toward some branches/shoreish area. After another few minutes fighting with it in the water we managed to get it to a shore area and get it free of water.
TLR: Friends flipped their shit, freaked out in gatory water and we had a lot of fun.
Now at the time I didn't even give any thought to jumping in the water. I was most concerned with my friends swimming ability. But in hindsight, man there were gators all over that day. We saw another one shortly after too. Had this happened near one of the gators (who knows, maybe there were some under us?) how big of a concern would it have been?
To put it another way. Let's say I see my friends flip over and there is a gator 15 feet away in the water. Is it still the right decision to jump in the water to help them?
I know gators aren't exactly predators of humans. But in the wild, in their territory... what are the odds of that going very badly?
I had an interesting event happen the other day. The wife, me and another couple decided to go canoeing over the weekend. The other couple we were with weren't the best canoers ever and had a little accident. They flipped! I don't really know how it happened, but it did.
Now this river we were on has gators all over it. Not more than 15 minutes prior there was a real nice size gator we saw jump in the water and swim under our canoe. It wasn't our intention to go swimming in the water!
So my two friends end up in the water (along with all of our stuff!) and start freaking out. The canoe quickly gets flooded to the point that they can't flip it back over. We were in a narrow, heavily tree'd area. Lots of growth near the edges of the water, mucky seaweedy type stuff. The current was also surprisingly strong. The guy friend recently had surgery and wasn't in peak physical shape to deal with this situation. The girl friend was freaking out. She was scared of the gators and wasn't having a fun time trying to hang onto the canoe/remain above water/not die.
So the wife and I paddled up to them as fast as possible, stop the canoe real close and I jump in. I helped both of them get into our canoe (without them flipping that one!) and then I go after their canoe. I quickly realize I'm not going to be able to flip this back over in the water. I then started swimming back to our canoe, upstream against a pretty strong current. I really underestimated the difficulty here. I finally get back to our canoe and we all get situated into a cramped canoe. We head downstream to rescue our other canoe/gear and after loading as much as we can into the good canoe I hop back in the water and attempt to maneuver the capsized canoe toward some branches/shoreish area. After another few minutes fighting with it in the water we managed to get it to a shore area and get it free of water.
TLR: Friends flipped their shit, freaked out in gatory water and we had a lot of fun.
Now at the time I didn't even give any thought to jumping in the water. I was most concerned with my friends swimming ability. But in hindsight, man there were gators all over that day. We saw another one shortly after too. Had this happened near one of the gators (who knows, maybe there were some under us?) how big of a concern would it have been?
To put it another way. Let's say I see my friends flip over and there is a gator 15 feet away in the water. Is it still the right decision to jump in the water to help them?
I know gators aren't exactly predators of humans. But in the wild, in their territory... what are the odds of that going very badly?