don't follow pat

Kate and I got up early one morning at our cottage in June 2022 to paddle board on Iron Lake. The lake was glass calm, so I brought my iPhone along. What could go wrong, after all?

We started our paddle in the shallow bay on the southeast part of the lake. Cutting through the mist that came from the cool overnight temps meeting the warm water, I was glad that I had my iPhone in my pocket, to take pictures.

After we got about half-way around the small bay of the lake, Kate remembered that she had a Zoom workout, part of her rigorous routine for rehabbing her knee replacement. I decided to keep going and circle the entire lake – about three miles in all.

As Kate disappeared around the peninsula, I took my iPhone out of my pocket to listen to Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits. But when I put the phone back into my pocket, the sound of “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” was muffled. So, I carefully placed the phone on the front of the paddle board. What’s the chance that I would fall in on such glass-calm water?

As I followed the shoreline, I could see all the way to the bottom of the lake through the crystal-clear water. Fish were darting back and forth, and clams and snails were moving slowly, leaving trails in the sand.

When I got about half-way around the lake, the shoreline turned weedy. As I paddled, I felt the board drag, and I wondered if I had picked up some weeds on my fin. I turned around to check it out.

Big mistake. As I turned, I lost my balance. I tried my best to keep from falling, but as I stepped on the back of the board, it flipped up and I was in the water.

When I surfaced, the life jacket that I had on the board was still there, but the music had stopped, and the phone was gone. I was standing in water that was about four-feet deep, thick with weeds and about a foot of muck on the bottom. I checked the board one more time, hoping that the phone was still there. But no luck.  

As I put my head underwater to search for the phone, I heard the music! Bob Dylan was singing “Forever Young!” What luck, I thought. Just follow the music to find the phone. But as I tried to turn to where the music was coming from, I noticed that that sound came from everywhere. Muddy, weedy water is a perfect surround-sound system.

I went under again, and holding my breath, searched at my feet but found nothing but weeds and muck. Then I got that sick feeling, when you realize that you’ve f-ed up.

When was the last time I backed up my phone? How will I get access to my UW account without using my iPhone’s “Multifactor Identification (Duo)?” The new iPhone costs more than $1,000 – and I wouldn’t even have something to trade in! 

I scanned the shoreline and was relieved to see that the cottages were quiet, so my mishap had gone unnoticed. But no time to waste. I needed to find that phone. Failure was not an option.

I first tried to go under the water to search with my hands, but the water was now dark and murky from the mud being stirred up.

I could only hold my breath for a short time, before I floated to the surface. I took off my crocks and started to probe the muck with my bare feet. Back and forth. I would feel something, only to pick up a rock or piece of wood.

Then I noticed that I could no longer hear the music.

After another five minutes, I was starting to think that I would not find it. Was I searching the right area? When I jumped back on the board, did it vault the phone through the air? And where was I, when it happened? Had I lost track of my exact location?

But then I remembered. Failure is not an option.

So, I grabbed the paddle and stuck it in the mud where I thought the phone might be. I then starting walking around the paddle, in ever-expanding concentric circles. One foot out, two feet, three, four, and five. How could the phone not be in this area?

So I changed my plan, and started to search a larger area, walking a 10-foot line down, and back, down, and back. I found a few more sticks, and a few rocks. But no phone. I put my head under the water, and it was still silent.

After another few minutes, I was about to give up. But then my foot felt something. Not deep in the muck but caught in a tangle of weeds. I went under and reached for it and could not believe that it was my iPhone.

As I took the phone out of the water, I saw the screen light up.

• Missed call
• Text message (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel news update)
• Strava update (showing my location at the northwest corner of Iron Lake).

And then I heard the faint sound of music. I put the phone to my ear and could barely hear Bob Dylan singing “And accept it that soon, you’ll be drenched to the bone.”

Once back at the cottage, I tried to charge the phone but got a notice that water was in the charging port. I put it in rice, and then Googled what to do. It said, “Do not put the phone in rice, but let it dry slowly.”

I did that, and the next day the phone worked. And I was able to finish listening to the rest of Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, on terra firma.