My bracket was busted. I had little interest in Duke and Kentucky. Besides, a more compelling shade of blue was luring a platoon of paddlers to the Prongs.

And our submarine.

So we headed to the Prongs. 33rd year. 33 canoes. 33 degrees…almost.
High water sidelined us for a day. We couldn’t reach our advance team, who had set course down the river the day before the flood. That night torrential rains and a flash flood liberated their paddles from their canoes. Food and water containers washed away. But they were high and dry, mostly. For two days and nights they drank the rainwater they caught off their tent.  Our rescue party reached them with paddles and met them with a truck at the next takeout.

  We camped with Cap’n Jack’s ghost…

  and awoke to the call of the water,

confident…