Between a Rock and a Nude Beach

Just shy of two floating and fly-fishing seasons under our belts, my husband is a competent, practiced drift boat oarsman. He has mastered all the maneuvers necessary to thread the needle of water along our favorite float on the Blackfoot River—where the spectacular scenery makes it difficult to divert your eyes long enough to monitor your dry fly on the water’s surface.

Each of our four grown kids has had the pleasure of the angling afternoon, complete with picnic and plenty of stops for wading—we like to stretch the six-mile float for as long as we can. Ahhhh—nothing like a relaxing day on the river. Except for this one day in August during a week when we’ve since determined that the current was looking to claim: several of our friends related harrowing sagas about their day on the water—during the same week. Like fish tales in which the size of the catch grows and competes, stories of dumps and flips and floating coolers topped each other when we gathered to tell them. Bottom line: for a few dog days, the Blackfoot had been fishing for floaters.

We’d run this same length of river several times. Granted, there are a few tricky turns that require technical rowing, but Brad had passed that test and skated through narrow channels—only a bump or two. We’d grounded but pushed right off the shallows. No problem; lots of fish; good food, better sun, most fun.

This particular fine August afternoon, our son Mark was on board for the first time, fishing from the back. His new bride Ashley sat in the double seat up front, by me. We took turns planting our hips in the brace to try our hand at trout. It was glorious. Until we suddenly weren’t moving. At all.

Seems having two of us forward made for sluggish rowing, not to mention decreased visibility; Brad struggled to ogle water hazards before we were upon them. Seems this time that’s exactly where we were.

“Put your rod away—NOW!” Brad directed.

But there was this perfect little foam line on my left–just one more cast? I suffer from obsessive casting disorder. Wisely, I battled temptation and followed the captain’s orders.

There we sat, securely fastened to one rock as the Kevlar boat bottom gripped hold, while pushed against another by the impossibly formidable underwater pull. Stuck—as in no matter how hard Brad and Mark pushed with oars, feet, arms, and backs, and for how long, there was no loosing us. Thirty minutes had passed.

“Strap this on,” Brad commanded loudly over the crashing sound of current. Okay, so I heard a tiny bit of panic and frustration built-into the volume of his voice. As Mark buckled the orange life vest, Ashley looked down.

“This is not good,” she groaned.

“I’m worried they’ll hit their heads,” I contributed, since I couldn’t help but notice that the rock they planned to step out onto, the one against which the current had us pinned, was not at all flat above the surface. It was triangular in shape, the base of the triangle being on the bottom of the Blackfoot, where I expected them both to join it in no time.

“Once it moves, Kathleen,” Brad locked eyes on me more intensely than he had at the altar, right before he’d uttered I do, “you will have to use the oars and get over to the bank.” I nodded assuredly while I thought, you have got to be kidding!

“We’ll meet you there,” he shrieked over the volume of the water that churned with new force, as if someone had just switched the blender from stir to puree below the rock they were precariously perched upon.

Where? In heaven?

I shifted into oaring position as father and son heaved against the boat with all their might, which wasn’t much considering they had no leverage on a slippery triangle tip. After several attempts during which Ashley looked down to pray and I gripped the oar handles as if my life depended on it (and it probably would have) they surrendered. Back in the boat, at which point it shifted, but only to nearly take on water. We froze, shimmied a bit this way and that way and any way in order to avoid that picture.

One by one, my ideas were rejected. Being that I had been a mere English teacher while Brad possessed the steel-trap mind of a top-notch attorney and Mark is an engineer, I could understand their feeling that my plans might not the best laid. When I suggested that we hurl the anchor as far as we could and then pull its line with all our might. Brad looked at me like I had two heads and was wondering why he had ever married me.

Another half hour disappeared while the men deliberated. It was only when I overheard my over-confident husband who always knows the answer to everything (ahem) say to Mark, “I actually don’t know what to do!” and Mark concurred, that I mentally entertained potential rescue. Since we’d seen not a single human being during the entire sojourn, an essential ingredient to the charm of the occasion, until now, when you wish that you were surrounded by a Disneyland-sized crowd, I wondered from whence would such assistance come?

Ashley whispered to me, “Pass me the camera.” I knew she intended to take a picture of our family cavalry, our heroic husbands (hopefully) but wanted it to be a candid shot so as to capture the more feminine expressions on their faces—as in “Yikes! What in the heck do we do?!”

I surreptitiously reached behind me and unzipped the tackle bag pocket, lifted the camera like a pick-pocketing pro, only to have Brad’s legal instinct kick in and eyes zero in on my hand. Caught. And really bad timing.

“I’m so glad you find humor in this situation!” he snapped sarcastically. So there are no photographic images to accompany this story. But don’t give up on your imagination—the best is yet to come.

While the boys ruminated, my focus wandered. I gazed far ahead, thinking positive thoughts such as: It doesn’t get dark for another six hours; Even though I just checked my cell phone and there were no bars, maybe there will be in a minute—or another cell tower is being constructed as I ponder; Look at the lovely view! If you have to be stuck, what a beautiful place to be stuck in!

Just then I removed my sunglasses to verify that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. My Pollyanna reverie had been assaulted by the sight that would cause anyone sore eyes: two stark-naked male seniors in their seventies (at the youngest) standing on the beach about six yards downstream.

I remembered that when our guide had first ferried us down this stretch, right before we took out on the ramp at the end of the day, she had pointed out “the Blackfoot’s nude beach” but there had been no one in attendance—neither had there been on any subsequent outing. Not that I was looking. Today, oh good fortune, these two tan gentlemen faced front, square at us, their raw hands on their exposed hips, displaying all other unclad anatomical parts while assessing our situation. And doing nothing about it, thank God.

Speech fled from my capability as I struggled to find the words to instruct Ashley to turn around and look downriver and to the right. Not that she would need that much direction. A simple, “Turn around!” would suffice.

After swallowing seven times, I advised her. Adding, by the way, “and don’t scream.”
She did, and she didn’t, although her eyes popped so that I worried they might have enlarged permanently.

“Is this who we will call upon for help?” I asked her.

Who else was there, after all? We’d been not asking for directions for over an hour, and our menfolk were exhausted, depleted of strength and mental acuity—as we all would have to be in order to cry out to elderly au naturel men to save the day. They didn’t even have tool belts.

“Even if it takes us forever to get free, we’re almost to the take out,” I chirped when I realized there was yet another optimistic ort to be extracted from our seemingly bleak outlook.

“How do you know that?” Brad couldn’t help but be baffled by my confident statement since I have neither memory for places nor the slightest sense of direction, especially on the ever-changing landscape of a river. This new landmark empowered me with uncharacteristic conviction.

Trust me.

Brad and Mark conveniently ignored me as I urged them to realize that rescue might be within reach, provided they could bear to reach for it. Caught between a rock and a nude beach, would I have be the typical female to humble us and holler for—pardon the pun—the bare essentials that could set us free?

The river gods were with me: I never had to make that hard decision. Apparently our weight shifted just so when Ashley and I eyed the situation up ahead, and at just the fortuitous moment when Brad and Mark heaved one last time with oars against the pyramid rock that pinned us. Suddenly, the boat turned, ever so slightly but just enough for Brad to twist it around the rock and send it spinning, and off we were—on a collision course for the clothing-optional cove.

In one final burst of adrenalin, my brave husband hauled oars and corrected the curve so that the moment we righted and passed several stripped and sagging sunbathers engaged in some sort of seminar where the infamous pair stood and addressed the unclad colony, we too managed to look lazy.

“’I’m ready for that beer now—let’s pull over and rest awhile,” Brad sighed.
“A little farther downstream,” I added, as I casually cracked a beer, threw back a glance, and imagined being disentangled by the disrobed.

Ahhh…Just another day on the river. I threw Brad a coquettish smile and congratulated him on his aquatic achievement.

“Can we go back and cast that foam line?”