As we got into the river, there was a large group of Middle Eastern men who apparently knew nothing about canoeing. Within the first 50 yards of the launch site one of the boats had already capsized once. We continued on and continued to get broadsided twice by other people with their group. As we continue on down the river, it begins to rain.... wait pour! How long could a little rain storm last for? Hours..... As we continue on in the Tsunami we encounter a group who had called an ambulance to the river for what appeared to be an injury to a woman's ankle.
While we continued on it the rain, we came around a corner and Laura's camera went overboard and sank to the bottom of the river. Miraculously Steve found the river when the sun briefly came out from behind the clouds and allowed him to see the bottom of the river.
Two men, who looked to be both homeless and possible meth addicts had passed us several times. As we came around a corner one of the men had the nose of his boat trapped under a tree and was "pinned" between the tree and the boat. His friend was hanging on the end of the tree that was sticking out into the river. We pulled our canoe over, Steve walked across the river, told the men, "let go of the boat". Both men hesitated as they appeared to be clinging to the tree for dear life. Steve grabbed the boat pulled out, and walked it back across the river. He then told the men to "let go of the tree, you can touch..." it took several minutes to convince the men to trust him, when they eventually did, they too stood up and walked across the river....
When we finally approached Wakley Bridge which was our pick-up point, we emptied our canoes and dumped the several inches of water that had accumulated. When Carlisle Canoe's picked us up we began to loaded the van, I left the cooler with Steve's sunglasses sitting on the top for him to bring when he got in the van, we were several hundred yards away from the launch, the van driver attempted to turn around, managed to jack-knife to canoe trailer in the road and for a brief minute I thought the van was going to roll over into the ditch. The driver was distracted and passed the road to the launch, he continued down the road and pulled into a competitors drive to turn around yet again. The owners wife, stood in the driveway and watched with a scowl on her face. As the driver was pulling out of the driveway he hit the fence pole and knocked it down. We went back, and Steve's sunglasses were laying on the ground! As we were pulling back out the driver wanted to go back and fix the fence. Steve and Dennis can down the road and fixed it best they could without and tools. The owners told they had "already called Carlise!" While Laura and I waited in the van for the boys to return we heard why the driver had been distracted in the first place, his girlfriend was at a party with another guy, our driver Joe was told he could not go to the party.... poor kid!
After we returned home we heard the 3 people had been further down river from us, and two of them had died and one was in critical condition after being struck with lightening. Yikes! Glad we made it home safe.
9&10 News - Lightning Strike Kills Two, Injures Another on Au Sable River in Oscoda County
