Perilous Situations I have Been In

byTeriRehkopf

1K followers

1 month ago

The image is of me and some friends with my horse, Great Scott, after my car accident where I broke my arm and was in a cast for 4 months.,

I’ve been in a few perilous situations in my life. I thought I would list a couple that I can remember. There’s been a lot since I’m an old person now 😊

The first tidbit is about me and the first horse I had as a teenager. I renamed him from ‘Apache’ to ‘Great Scott’, and I called him ‘Scottie’. He was just tall enough to be a horse size (14 3/4 hh). He was a part quarter horse Buckskin gelding.

Scottie and I – Surviving a Flood on the Suwanee

I had to evacuate an oncoming flood when Hurricane Dora hit Florida in 1964. We had rented a cabin next to the Suwanee River when my father managed a construction job in Suwanee, Florida. Typically, the river was 20 feet below our cabin.

My father, ever the survivalist in making things work, made a winch-type device that would lower us while we were in the boat down to the water, and it would winch us back up when we returned from our boat trip.

It was known that the Suwanee would flood. It did. The hurricane caused the river to rise 20 feet overnight, flooding the surrounding area, including Suwanee Springs, which was within walking distance. We had moved as much as we could up to another cabin on higher ground. I also had to move my horse, which was stabled a bit down the road from us, to an open cow pasture.

A few days later, when the water had subsided considerably, I decided to ride my horse, Scottie, to see what had happened. Riding my horse bareback, I rode down the submerged road, trying to get to the higher ground I could see, but the water was still deep enough that my horse had to swim a bit. That was scary. You don't have much control over a swimming horse.

I rode further down the road, where I knew an open area was cleared for huge electric lines. It was also flooded, but being an idiot teenager, I thought I could ride through it. I had no idea how deep it was. The clearing was surrounded by trees and brambles on both sides.

As we went further into the flooded area, it dropped off into deep water. My horse was swimming again, and I had no control over him. He decided to veer off to the left into the trees and brambles. He got stuck and tangled in the huge brambles with big thorns. I was riding bareback so I could slide off of him and untangle his legs.

As I freed his rear legs, he lunged forward toward land! I grabbed his long tail, and he pulled me to dry land with him. Luckily, my horse only had minor cuts on his legs, but I had deep cuts from the thorns on my hands. That was really scary. I rode him home the long way, about a mile down the side of the highway.

This next tidbit is about being part of a crew on a 34’ sailboat that got caught on the ocean in a storm. A scary, but exciting venture, it was.

Sailing in an Ocean Storm

I was once a member of the NFCC, a local sailing organization that was one of four sailing clubs on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, FL. These clubs would put on sailing races every Spring and Fall, including the Mug Race.

All of the races were on the St. Johns River, except for two that were ocean races. The boats, captains, owners, and their crews had to sail or motor their sailboats from their respective marinas to the ocean for the race.

The race-day marina was at the head of the St. Johns at Mayport. It was formerly known as Mayport Marina, but it now operates under a new name. You would motor your boat from Mayport Marina to the ocean to line up in a long line to start the race.

The race lineup in itself is a terrifying part, trying not to slam into other boats or be slammed into! That invisible line is quite short when many boats are trying to get a good start at the same time.

The entire race was typically a three-day process, involving transporting the boats to the race-day marina, where the crew would be picked up, followed by the race day to the destination, spending the night at the race destination, and returning home the next day.

The first NFCC race in the ocean was to the north, starting at the head of the St. Johns River and the Atlantic at Mayport. The destination was the Fernandina, GA marina.

The Fall race destination was to the south to the St. Augustine, FL marina. It also began at the Mayport Marina and was another three-day trip. Most people would motor their sailboats back north on the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) the day after the race.

My first race to St. Augustine was as a crew member on a friend’s heavy and wide 34-foot cruising sailboat. The day started fine, but rain was forecast in the afternoon.

As we who live in Florida know, the weather can turn quickly when you are sailing in the ocean. Being a heavy and wide boat built for cruising and not sailing, we were way behind all of the other boats as we neared the end of the race,

The rains came, and they were so heavy that we couldn’t see the buoys in the ocean marking the entrance to the St. Augustine Beach/Anastasia Island inlet, where we were supposed to go.

After a while, we finally figured out we had gone too far, and we attempted to turn the boat around. That would have been easy except we had too much sail up and the waves were cresting at 20 feet. Someone had to go forward to detach the jib (headsail) and then reef the mainsail.

There wasn’t anything to hold on to on the foredeck. The lifelines that gave you a false sense of security anyway didn’t go all the way forward to attach to the bow pulpit, but instead connected to the deck about three feet before you reached the sail.

Being fearless (probably dumb, too, lol) and the smaller person, I offered, but I couldn’t manage the heavy sail by myself. Here comes the boat owner and captain to do it, while I jumped into the forward hatch to retrieve the jib (sail) and pack it.

Next, the captain and I pulled the mainsail down some – reefing. The other two crew members were sailing the boat itself. One was steering and the other was working the mainsail for steerage.

We were all pretty frantic, but we worked in unison so that the boat finally slowed down enough to turn around and head back to the inlet off the St. Augustine jetties.

We didn’t have cell phone service then, so my husband, who came to meet us in our old wooden cruiser (an Egg Harbor) at the St. Augustine marina, was a bit worried since we were a couple of hours behind everyone else.

These two escapades are longer than I thought, so I will have to return at a later date to recount more.

What kind of crazy escapades have you been in? Do you have any dangerous hobbies like I do? What kind of activities do you do for fun and excitement? Please reply with a comment below.