The Blackwater River is in its natural state for almost its entire length...

Which might explain why there are so many downed trees in the downstream path on any given day.

On this day, there was a tree sticking part-way out of the water, but mostly underwater. Lynnette saw it coming, but with the quick current, we couldn't navigate out of the way fast enough. She freaked & tried to grab onto the large tree branch... flipping our canoe!

There we were... being sucked into this pit of downed tree limbs & branches. It wasn't pretty. All of our belongings inside the canoe were floating downstream, including our cooler, koozies, Lynnette's favorite pair of flip flops, and our waterproof disposable camera -- gone!