Robert,
Great story, I think it captures an aspect of paddling few capture in books. Do you have river otter in the area? The time of day and the actions sound like a young river otter.
Scott

: The following is just one of the stories which will appear in the
: book. I thought y'all might enjoy being my beta test
: victims...er, I mean, I thought y'all might like to get a sneak
: peak.

: Robert N Pruden

: The Muskrat

: I remember one particular stretch of river especially well. The
: prairie summer sky was a stunning azure blue with puffy
: marshmallow clouds floating on high. The suns brilliant light
: and basking heat was radiating into the soil, baking the sweet
: scents from the soil and lush plant life growing in the river
: valley. I breathed this airy nectar in through my nose as deeply
: as my lungs would allow. I had just paddled past a town, perhaps
: Heinsburg: it is set right on the flood plain, and decided that
: I needed to stretch my legs a little. I carefully pulled one leg
: out of the cockpit at a time and set them on the deck top.
: Anyone who knows a whit about kayak stability understands that
: this position is somewhat precarious at the best of times. It
: wouldn’t take much to cause an upset, especially on a river as
: restless as the North Saskatchewan. I wasn’t very worried
: about the increase in instability I caused by having my legs on
: top of the deck, the VJ is a very stable kayak, the river was
: calm today, the sun hot and the air relatively still: what could
: go wrong?
: I had the center of the paddle loom half resting on my stomach
: while I made lazy corrective strokes to keep the kayak
: bow-forward while I half dozed. I had tilted my hat forward to
: keep the sun out of my eyes while I lazed. Occasionally, I let
: my feet dangle in the river to let them cool off. I listened to
: the sounds of shore birds and waterfowl as I passed by. Soon, I
: was feeling very dozy so I stopped making corrective strokes and
: allowed myself to enjoy a catnap while the kayak floated with
: the easy current. It seemed as if everything was lazy today: the
: air, the river, me, even the land which seemed to show no
: activity at all. The shoreline was graced with verdant forest
: and shrub that stood tall in the streaming light of the day. The
: sunshine seemed to inspire the universe to relax and bask in the
: glory of its golden wealth of warmth. My mind roamed free and
: random thoughts popped into and out of existence as the river
: eased around a wide slow bend. Occasionally, I would awaken
: enough to peep out of one eye to see where I was in relation to
: the shore, I’d make a corrective stroke or two then settle the
: paddle back on my stomach and go back to dozing. Eventually, the
: kayak had drifted toward the south bank as the river made a lazy
: turn to the right. The kayak was still running straight so I
: left matters to the current as I continued my afternoon reverie.
: At one point I opened my eyes to see how the kayak was taking the
: curve. I noticed an object floating closer to shore. It looked
: organic and I was idly thinking that I was looking at another
: dead animal. Up to this point, I had seen a wide variety of dead
: animals either floating on the river or laying on the shore,
: from possible human remains to beaver to waterfowl and even a
: cow or two. I eyed the floating object with very little direct
: interest other than to see if it was a stick or a corpse. My
: legs were still atop the deck and the bow of the kayak was
: slowly beginning to shift toward the shore. Just as the object
: of interest was passing not more than two feet aside between the
: kayak and two feet from the shore, I saw that it was an animal.
: There were four tiny feet poking up into the air along a body
: which was floating downstream tail first on its back. I was
: thinking that it must have been a muskrat which died while in
: the water, probably of old age. I needed to make a stroke to
: steer the kayak away from the shore so I slowly moved my arms to
: dip the paddle blade into the water between the kayak and the
: apparently dead muskrat.
: Everything that happened next occurred with the span of a few
: seconds. As I lazily moved my arms to dip the paddle blade into
: the water for the needed correction stroke, the dead muskrat
: suddenly sprang vigorously to life, jumped above the water and
: rotated its body around to a feet-down position while it was
: still in the air. How the hell it did that I will never know but
: it moved with such a startled violence that it frightened the
: beegeebers out of me. My reverent ease erupted into a defensive
: action to protect myself from whatever might happen. Remember
: that my legs were not inside the cockpit at this time but were
: still upon the deck, the most compromising and unstable position
: you can be in while paddling a kayak. My startle reaction, I
: very rarely have a startle reaction, caused me to shift my
: center of balance toward the muskrat, which by this time, was
: splashing water toward the high heavens until it was quite
: literally running on top of the water. I struggled to stabilize
: my situation while watching that darned muskrat miraculously
: rotate its body in mid-air, land on the surface of the water at
: a dead run, churn its feet in the same spot until they built up
: enough water pressure, then thrust itself forward with good
: momentum only to leap into the air. It formed a furry little
: spear with its body with its front legs forming the cone of this
: missile then dove into the rivers depths.
: By this time I was struggling terribly to maintain my balance using
: my paddle and various body contortions while whispering quiet
: invectives like, “Shit!” and “Damn!” and “Whoa!”
: Once I found my center of balance and stabilized the kayak again
: the only traces of evidence that the muskrat had been present
: were the circles of water moving away from the spot where it
: disappeared into the water.
: My heart slowed a beat as I turned my head back to the forward
: position. Instead of making a corrective stroke to straighten
: out the kayak, I began to laugh while the keel of the kayak
: continued its slow drift to shore. I laughed at the surprise I
: was given and even more so, I laughed at the surprise both me
: and the muskrat were given. We were both lulled by the bright
: afternoon sun, the slow hot air, the easy river current and
: equally startled by each other’s very quiet peaceful presence.
: The kayak eventually hit shore. I used this as an excuse to get
: out, make a pit stop and get back into the kayak with my legs in
: the cockpit instead of upon the deck. I didn’t want to go
: through another startling experience like that again. Had I
: tipped, it would have been a non-issue since I was floating over
: the shallows near the shore line. Had I been in deeper water, it
: would have been a pain to set things right. In hindsight,
: swimming during such a hot day might have been a great idea.