A guide Line


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Posted by Ed Kiser on November 14, 2010 at 17:34:18 user Kisered.

There were two times Dick used a rope to assist in finding his way
while exploring.

In WH, when the sledge wrecked there in the blinding snow, Dick
fastened one end of the closeline he had (he called it an Alpine
rope) to the sledge, then taking the loose end of that line, he
walked away into the invisibility of that snow to see if he could
find any thing at all. He made several trips out from the sledge,
in several different directions, and on one of these, caught a
glimpse of some sort of house, that could be a sanctuary from the
storm. Leaving the line in that direction, he followed the line
back to the sledge, where Dorothea was waiting, and then retracing
his steps by again following that line, the two of them made their
way to that house, and to shelter from the storm. It so happens
that the place they found was indeed the North Pole that they were
looking for.

In PP, after entering the mine of The Old Level, Dick, Dorothea,
Roger, and Titty found themselves "buried alive" after the
entrance back out of that cave was blocked by a slide of rock.
But figuring that Squashy Had had come out that way, he must have
come in some other way. They also remembered that Nancy had said
that it goes all the way through the mountain, so they decided to
try to follow Squashy's footprints and trace them back to where he
came in. They reached a place where the hard rock no longer
showed his prints, and came to a place where there were several
openings branching out from this junction location. Not knowing
which way went where, once again Dick took a string, got someone
to stand still where they were so they would know what passageway
they had come in through, and taking the line with him, selected a
passageway, hoping to eventually find again in the damp a sign of
Squashy's footprints. Again, he tried several before he found
what he was looking for, came back to the others, and this time
was able to go on through to where Slater Bob was actively mining,
and thus were able to get out of their "buried alive" problem.

Having read these two during my early years, this use of a rope
was thus a learned procedure, one that in real life, I put to
practice.

I was a member of a Scuba Diving Group that from time to time
would be called upon to help find objects sunk into the river.
"Objects" here were things like sunken boats, ourboard engines
that had leaped off the transom, and also included Drowning
Victims, not all that pleasant an assignment. The river was dense
with red clay silt, with absolutely no visibility at all, being in
total darkness several inches down from the surface. So one was
"looking" for something, without being able to see, only feel. I
went down an anchor rope to the bottom, at about 20 feet, judging
from the length of anchor rope used. I did not use the
traditional Scuba Diver fins, as I was not swimming, but walking
about, groping, "looking" for some object that I would just happen
to run into. So walking on the bottom meant wearing canvass
shoes, and carrying excess weight (assortment of rocks stuffed
into the straps of my gear, which could be discarded when ready
to come back up) to help me stay on the bottom, I went
down the anchor rope, and clipped another line to that anchor
rope, and paying out about two yards of line, and using the
current to push me into the downstream position, I could then walk
in a circle, keeping tension on my guide line. I could tell the
half of the circle when I was fighting the current, and the other
half when I was going downstream. In this way, I knew when I was
at the completion of the circle, and it was time to pay out
another length of line, this time making a larger diameter circle,
and a much longer way around. Eventually, reaching the end of my
rope, this location could be then moved and the process repeated.
When the desired object found, I clipped another line to it, and
blew up a float, and let it rise to mark the location. Back on
the surface, with that float as a marker, divers could go down to
that specific spot and bring up the desired object, or, depending
on the object involved, just take a boat to the float, and haul up
on the line I had attached.

But groping and feeling about in that total darkness, I remembered
Dick struggling in that blinding snow, holding on to his guide
line, even as I was groping about in the total darkness of heavily
silted river water.

It was very satisfying to be able to apply a technique Ransome's
Dick had taught me.

Just another one of those educational features that came with
reading Ransome, without feeling that I was trying to learn
anything at all.

Ed Kiser, Kentucky



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