Buffalo River (TN) aka the Great Turtle Rescue – 8/6 and 8/7/05

After a trip as large as fifteen was threatened, we ended up with six people on our Buffalo River trip. We took the scenic route to Buffalo River Canoeing and Camping, since a bad wreck had closed a portion of the interstate. Dinner at the Log Cabin restaurant was good. That morning, we packed up and headed for the river, with the BRCC people planning to help us with shuttle once we were unloaded.

Lucas and I paddled together, as usual for these trips. Amy the Turtle Savior paddled with Jody. Chase and Sarynna paddled together despite all the divorce boat talk. While Jody and Lucas ran shuttle, the rest of us packed the boats for two days of paddling and lounging. While we were packing, three trailers of canoes unloaded and launched, ensuring our trip would be neither quiet nor remote. The local sheriff stopped by to tell us the access point was no longer available to the public because a "Conservancy" owned the land. He later confessed the Conservancy was really the Sheriff's Office intending to curtail the partying and trashing of the property that had been ongoing for years. Misleading? Police? Never.

Sadly, in early August, the Buffalo is infested with rednecks, most in canoes from the rental outfits, but others just driving in to one of the party spots. The three boat trailers full of people were just a hint of the traffic we would see on the river. The river was practically wall to wall redneck for the first eight miles. We found a few quiet spots here and there, but not all that many.

Rivers + teenagers + beer = natural selection hard at work.

Sarynna and Chase took pretty well to the canoe. I had explained the different strokes while everybody else was running shuttle. Their big difficulty came when running the trickier spots like the strainers. Chase got pretty good at ruddering, but didn’t realize that he needed to help with the paddling part, too. Once they solved that issue, navigation got a whole lot easier.

Amy and Jody found a turtle pinned between a few branches. He got himself wedged there so that he was sitting vertically, legs flailing just a few inches above the water. Amy and Jody got in there and freed him. Little did we know, the theme for the trip had just been announced.

The skies started getting darker as we got closer to Heath’s Canoe Rental. Thankfully, Heath’s was where 95% of the rednecks would be done for the day. We ran a little rapid above their takeout and then a few minutes later, the river was quiet. Thunder in the distance made us wonder if rain was headed our way and it made me grateful Lucas had picked up a tarp in town. We might need it. We started looking for a camping spot soon after and had a hard time finding one to our liking. We passed an access point on the right. A couple of guys were there with trucks and beer, so we were all hoping to camp far enough away or hoping the threat of rain might chase them away. We got lucky on both accounts. Just after them, we came to a big island. We took the left channel and found a nice camp just around the bend.

We set up tents pretty quickly and Lucas set up the tarp. We started prepping the appetizer and dinner. Based on position, we thought the rain would pass us by, until we realized the dark clouds surrounded us. The baked brie appetizer came out, dinner went on the coals, and then the skies opened up on us. We relocated everything we needed under the tarp. Six chairs, a table and all of the food fit under a 10x10 tarp. We used the extra paddles to prop up the appropriate areas of the tarp so that rain wouldn’t pool on top.

We ate the Mexican lasagna dinner and the berry cobbler dessert under the tarp and then the clouds parted. We built a campfire and relocated our lounging to there for the rest of the evening. Our lounging was interrupted when Amy spotted a baby turtle running into the fire. She rescued it. Then Jody spotted another one. And then another. And another… By the end of the evening, at least twenty turtles must have been rescued from running into the fire. We even spotted one running away from the fire. He learned. We were worried that we had built the fire over a nest or something, but I think it was somewhere else and the brightness must have distracted them from their run from the nest into the river. I’m all about natural selection, but I think we all felt bad about it applied to baby turtles. Rednecks, yes. Baby turtles, no.

Normally, we let the fire burn itself down, but in light of the turtle issue, they poured water on it. The next morning, the restarted fire made all kinds of fun crackling sounds and made some of the rocks jump. I thought it was fun until I took a hot rock to the eye. It’s all fun and games until…

We didn’t see any baby turtles in the morning, or any baby turtle carcasses, so at least they seemed to have fared well with the soggy fire. We took our time packing up and heading out and we enjoyed the last few miles at a leisurely pace. Lucas even let me paddle in the stern and promised to behave himself with the correction strokes.

Amy rescued another turtle on Sunday. This one was tangled up in some fishing line. She freed him from the tangle, but couldn’t get the fishing hook out. We tried a few different things to free him from the fishing hook, but nothing worked. He hid in the stern of her boat until the takeout. When the outfitter didn’t have strong wire cutters to clip the edge of the hook, she wished him well and set him free.

The Great Turtle Rescue ended without much else fanfare. We had no unintentional swims and only one argument that I know of. And many turtles lived to see another day.