Been there, except I was swimming with a fully extended 25' level rod with a peanut prism.
Back about '95 a client called on us to topo a 'drained' pond in Crested Butte about 2 1/2 hours away. All crews being booked up I took my 11 year old daughter to run the rod. Well, the pond wasn't quite drained of course, and it was full of water dogs and water snakes. I gave her a quick lesson in running a SET 3 and stripped down as much as I could and remain decent and proceed to topo that pond. At the deepest point I was on my tiptoes with water up to my lower lip and the water snakes kept coming up to look me in the eye.
The surveyors that were struggling with the new data collectors got a little ribbing about how quick my daughter picked up on running the instrument.
It wasn't me but our two "summer helpers" went for a swim and ended up about 1 mile downstream from where we were performing our cross sections of the Marais des Cygnes river. The water was really moving and it had rained a couple of nights before. We tied a rope from a tree on the north bank, across the water, to a tree on the south bank. Our "summer helpers" (who happened to be cousins) assured the crew chief and myself that we could complete the cross section.
In went the boat, with the two helpers, oars and a 25 foot level rod. One of the helpers held the rope and kept the boat "steady" while the other placed the rod in the water, on bottom, and I got the shot as quickly and accurately as possible.
And then it happened, the level rod went under the boat pulling out the helper holding it, flipped the boat and off they went. Crew chief and I running down the bank trying to keep an eye on the floating helpers. Long story longer, they caught the level rod, the oars and the boat and ended up on shore about 1 mile downstream from where we started.
At the highway department we had a steel flat-bottomed boat boat & motor with trailer that made shooting ponds and idle rivers or creeks a snap.?ÿ I had devised a weight from the remnant of concrete that had originally been poured around a fence corner.?ÿ It was about 10" diameter and 4" thick with a perfectly round hole in the center.?ÿ It probably weighed 5 pounds or so.?ÿ ?ÿWith at least a whole roll of baling wire we fastened a roll-up tape to the anchor so it would read the depth fairly accurately.?ÿ We'd gauge the depth from the gunwale and subtract the free board distance and hold a small prism on the gunwale at that point.
Things that work and hold together tend to hang around in survey trucks and get used.?ÿ We used our depth gauge extensively for a couple of years.?ÿ One day someone dragged it out of the truck to clean.?ÿ Someone unrolled the measuring tape and decided to measure it against a newer tape.?ÿ The tape had stretched a foot in 25 feet from all the tugging and pulling.?ÿ I bet the whole 100 feet was really 104 feet or so.
We replaced the tape without mentioning it to anyone else.?ÿ 😉
Long time ago.?ÿ Young and foolish.?ÿ Three-man crew.?ÿ One on the alidade and plane table.?ÿ One of the transit purchased from Noah.?ÿ And, me, somewhere in the stock pond.?ÿ Stadia shots.
looks familiar
except crossing gator infested creek holding pole above head, with tape measure in mouth! Beat That.
At least you would have been able to accurately describe the gator that maimed you for life.?ÿ "He was 17.58 feet long and 2.49 feet at the widest point."
