HALIFAX, N.S. — Grant Hatcher gave water bed a whole new meaning when he woke up in his tent floating on the Cobequid Bay near Noel Shore.
About three weeks ago, the Halifax resident was gearing up to head home to Cape Breton for the first time this year but his trip home went about as well as 2020 is going in general.
Hatcher meant to leave earlier that day, but after getting sidetracked, he was off on his motorcycle at about 7:30 p.m.
“I didn’t want to drive at night so much, and I literally just bought a brand new tent that day for this reason, so I thought I’ll just go set the tent up somewhere outside Truro,” Hatcher said in an interview Thursday.
“There was no rush to get to Cape Breton.”
So after dropping something off in the Lower Sackville area, Hatcher moseyed down Beaver Bank Road and ended up in Noel Shore.
“It was getting really dark and I was getting a little nervous because it was starting to rain, so I took a drive down by Noel Shore and there was this amazing spot with all this grass and flats,” Hatcher recalled.
But when Hatcher climbed down the hill and got to the flat, a few red flags popped up.
First, the beachgrass, which normally stands tall, was lying flat on the ground. Second, the ground was squishy as he walked on it. And third, after touching the grass and licking his finger, he noticed it was salty.
“I knew the tide got high in that area, but I rationalized it all in my head and thought it’s all good,” he said of the area that sees the world's highest tides.
Pushing those suspicions aside, Hatcher set up his three-person tent and fell asleep within the next half-hour.
“Then, at like almost 4 a.m. exactly, a dew drop just hit me in the forehead and kind of startled me awake,” Hatcher said.
“So I rolled over to readjust my position to go back to sleep and it was that precise moment that I knew something was really off.
“Everything underneath me moved. The whole tent wiggled. I wiggled. It all just wiggled.”
Suddenly, the flat, salty beachgrass and squishy ground all made sense. The tide had started to come in as Hatcher was sleeping and swept him slowly off the shore.
“My first thought was holy crap. I don’t know this area. Am I sucked out to sea?” Hatcher said. “But when I sat up in the tent, I sunk down a little bit and my bum just gently bounced off the ocean floor so I knew I wasn’t too far.”
Luckily, no water had seeped into his brand new tent — yet.
“I reach for the door and begin to unzip it and everything’s fine, but the moment I moved an inch closer to the door, the door went under the water and it was just like a movie,” Hatcher said.
“It was like whoosh. The whole ocean came into the tent at that exact moment.”
So there Hatcher stood in his tent, surrounded by his floating pillow, sleeping pad, comforter and backpack.
“I climbed out of the tent and I’m actually naked at this point because it was hot and I was sleeping naked,” Hatcher said. “So here I am sinking in the ocean, naked, dragging my tent back to shore.”
After putting on a pair of soaked pants, Hatcher started to break down the tent on the side of the road when he spotted headlights in the distance.
At first, he welcomed them at the thought of someone stopping to help.
“Then I looked down and saw myself half-naked, soaked, my tent, and I realized I don’t want anybody to see me like this, so I scooped my tent up and jumped into the bushes to hide,” he said.
Hatcher emerged from the bushes after the car passed, put on a wet T-shirt, soaked boots, motorcycle helmet and headed to the closest hotel in Truro — About a 45-minute drive away.
“It’s like five in the morning at this point, pitch black and I’m freezing. It was the coldest most awful drive of my life,” he said.
“I get to the hotel and the guy was kind of looking at me like, what’s this guy’s story? Who shows up to a hotel at 5:30 in the morning and looks like this?”
Just had a wonderful time home in Cape Breton, but the start of the trip was certainly far from "smooth" sailing, let me...
Posted by Grant Hatcher on Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Despite having to check out in less than six hours, Hatcher booked the room, took a hot shower and grabbed a couple of hours of sleep before he headed for Cape Breton.
Initially, Hatcher was so embarrassed that he only told his sister and close friend what happened. But as he passed Truro on a bus ride back to Halifax Wednesday, he shared his story on Facebook. The post has since received more than 3,400 likes and 6,000 shares.
“I can laugh about it now and hoped it would make at least one person smile,” he said.
And the whole ordeal gained Mountain Equipment Co-op, where Hatcher bought the tent, a lifelong customer.
“Oh, completely sold now on their tents,” Hatcher said with a laugh, adding he still has the tent.
“Helluva tent.”