The rest of the team was sceptical at best, with most of them hunkering down out of the wind to have a snack and wait for the inevitable result – take the long way around.
I have to confess to being somewhat concerned myself. If the blue specs were the pont, how would I get to it through all the thorn trees? Would it be in a useable state? Judging by the levels the water must have reached, this was no ordinary flood, most things will have been pulverised by it.
Assuming it survived in a repairable state, would we be able to carry out the required repairs? How heavy would it be? It looked like it was a long way from the water. Would it be possible to carry it?
On reaching the opposite bank, I found a route through the thorns. Lo and behold – there it was! On its back halfway up a tree with copious debris on it, under it and generally all over. The plastic drums that made up the floats looked ok, I banged on each one to establish if they were intact. They all made a sound similar to what one would expect from an intact drum.
Now for the million dollar question – could we move it? I tried lifting one edge, and although it was prevented from any significant movement, it was surprisingly light. Not light enough to move on my own, but if I could entice the rest of the crew hiding out of the wind stuffing their faces to get into the water, I think we could do it.
Gus and Jarod were at the rapids, I called them across. The three of us tugged and pulled a bit, but the roots of trees both present and far further downstream wrapped around the pont held it firmly in place. To compound our troubles, the cable which was spanned over the river and tied to the pont had wrapped itself around a whole forest of trees and the pont itself. I am sure this is what saved it. It would have been quite a sight surfing the raging torrent held fast by the cable on a number of submerged trees.
We yelled at the rest of the team to bring a Leatherman, as the shackle in the front joining cable and pont looked like it might yield to a bit of persuasion. Lohan was already over halfway across, having elected to wade through the line the pont usually took. He in turn yelled to Mike and Pikkie who now were obligated to join us.
and waded across with the required Leatherman.
