First tandem canoe that I paddled was a 16' Grumman. My girlfriend and I were visiting friends in Missouri and canoeist friends of theirs arranged a day of canoeing on the Huzzah River. Well, there were bow and center seats to put non-paddlers in but they needed someone to paddle stern in one of the canoes. They asked who had been in a canoe before and I said I had (bow seat only) so my partner and I were given a Grumman to paddle. She'd never paddled in a canoe before so my prowess as a skilled sportsman was on the line.
The river wasn't whitewater or particularly fast but there was a current. Things started out OK, I was able to keep the canoe going straight (more or less) and I avoided hitting occasional rocks and woody debris. But then a branch, sticking up out of the water from a sunken tree trunk, came into view and things started going downhill. Despite being the only obstacle on a quiet stretch of the river, I managed to nail it dead center and the canoe came to an abrupt stop. Luckily my partner didn't get catapulted out of the canoe and we managed to pivot around the branch, recover, and head back downstream. My girlfriend started to question if I knew what I was doing and I tried to assure her that it wouldn't happen again. Back to paddling a lovely river on a beautiful day.
But just downstream, on a bend in the river, was a fallen tree completely blocking our path. The root ball and main trunk was on the sandbar side with the crown holding the trunk about five feet above the water. I wanted to beach the canoe on the sandbar and portage around but the sandbar was completely choked with canoes, kayaks, rafts, inner tubes, and beer coolers. With no place to stop I figured everyone else must have just paddled through the tangle of branches. So that's what we tried. Needless to say, my girlfriend got tangled up in branches, the canoe slowed to a stop, and there we were, stuck, with an audience no less. Luckily the water wasn't deep, there wasn't much current, the canoe didn't breach, and a few of the now laughing onlookers came over to help out. My ego was crushed and my girlfriend was now assured that I did NOT know how to paddle a canoe.
At the lunch stop that day, I learned that this was a popular spot for locals to stop, completely clog up the takeout, have a brew or few, and watch newbie paddlers try to run the sweeper. Made me feel a LITTLE less humiliated. And despite my obvious lack of canoeing skills, my girlfriend said yes when I proposed marriage that fall.
