"UP A CREEK - WITHOUT A PADDLE"

Finally catching up a bit, Sunday (7/26) would continue to be an interesting day - After completing the "spill" clean-up we finished out the afternoon with a couple of routine tows and were sort of looking for a break :-(  but , just after 1730 hrs (5:30 p.m.), I received what I initially thought was a routine "stranded" PWC call, the young lady stated that she, her husband and a friend had ridden there 2008 Kawasaki PWC some 15 to 16 miles up the Grand Glaize arm and had fouled their jet impeller and were now stranded, without consulting a map first, I advised her that it would be some time before we could get that far up the Glaize, but that I was underway and headed in that direction - - she then informed me they were in the "creek" near a bridge, at that point the light in my head came on and I realized they were all the way up in the State Park near the "Swinging Bridges", I was entering the mouth of the Glaize arm and contacted a near-by Water Patrol officer, who told me there was NO way to get the towboat up there.  We would have to go by land, Hwy 42, to near Brumley, turn on Swinging Bridges Rd, to state park and we should be able to get close to them with a 4WD drive vehicle and PWC trailer.  I moored the towboat at the Osage Beach port, contacted Tim McNitt, he picked me up in his jeep.  Meanwhile Darren Grelle had picked up one of our PWC trailers and met us at the intersection of Hwy 54 & 42, where we switched the trailer to the jeep and headed for the upper Glaize. We arrived in the general area and located an access point near the first bridge and were unable to locate them, but we could hear them shouting, finally, we located them after crossing the wood planked large swinging bridge, (from the bridge, we could see them downstream) just after crossing the bridge we turned north on to an off road creek bed access.  We were able to get the jeep and trailer in to the creek bed, but not far enough to "float" the PWC aboard, our strands were slightly downstream and had to push the partially grounded PWC to us over a rocky creek bottom with NO shoes or flip flops which cut their feet.  Once we were able to get the PWC to the trailer we discovered it was the biggest and heaviest one made and we had to lift, winch and comelalong it on to the trailer which took several "lift & heave ho" efforts.  Finally loaded we packed all 6 of us in to the jeep and headed for home - - - - some 4 hours after the initial call and with darkness closing in - - we closed the case.

PHOTOS:  Top - Our "strands", looking downstream (N) from our access below the bridge slowly pushing their PWC toward us on the rocks (OW!, OOO!, Ouch!, *#&*!! and so on) :-)

Center - Pausing for a breath while loading the "beast" on the trailer - --.

Bottom - AuGlaize swinging bridge photo, taken in fall, showing more water then during our safari -.  

Google map below, dead center shows the small sand bar just north of the bridge where our folks were stranded.

View PWC in a larger map