After three weeks of -40 degree weather, it was finally nice enough this weekend to venture out.
We took the quad out on the river behind our property, as we do many times each year. Rode for about 45 mins, the only open water was on the "bottom" side of the beaver dams - that's normal. We stopped for a break, my man walked around, tested the ice, all was good. Got back on the quad.
2 mins later, came around a corner on the river and "Crack! CRACK!"
Boyfriend pinned it, but no.....in we went.
He was yelling, "Jump off, babe! Jump off!" But I had a vision of Leonardo De Caprio in Titanic, telling Rose to ride the ship down and jump off just before you get sucked down with it. We landed on a sandbar, thank the Goddess, so there was enough of the quad sticking out fo the water for us to stand on and re-group. But we were about 40 feet from either shore and not knowing how deep the water was in any direction. We were already wet up to our thighs. Well I was - boyfreind went in to the top of his Sorel's.
Called a couple of freinds - one was not at home and couldn't help. The other one came out to find us. But we were in a valley sort of thing - couldn't see over the hills and no one could see us from up top.
Called 911.
We were rescued after 2 hours on Quad Island.
This morning beofre work, I took Tim Horton muffins to our local small-town Fire Dept to say Thank You.
There's always a certain amount of second-guessing and What If's but they said we did the right thing - they would rather rescue us than to have to search fields for 2 unresponsive, hypothermic people and try to revive them.
It's funny, just that week we had watched a YouTube on what to do if your sled goes into the water and how to get out and it really helped. It was really only scary for a moment when we were going in - once we settled, we had time to think.
We are going to add a whistle to the gear. And some kind of floatation device.
Have I mentioned how much I hate winter?
[.......1.......2......3.......4.......5.......6.......7.......8.......9.......10.......11.......12.......]