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The neverending boat story

Two things are always both expensive and require constant attention: women, and boats.

Today's saga pertains to the latter, although some things could be discussed about the former on other days.

I know I'm going to pay for that, but everybody knows that good writing requires an interesting beginning. Now, I'll proceed to bore you with the facts as I see them (opinions).

When I got the boat, I spent several hours getting things back into shape. I also wanted to investigate why the boat decided to leave its home. The anchors where still attached, but they were tightly wrapped into all kinds of crap. I drew a picture:

Based on the fact that the anchors were fouled beyond use: I deduced that that my Edward Teach was more likely a Pelican than a man.

Now onto the action: I was a little bit surprised when I actually woke up a little after 3am--just as I planned. I drove to a park, then kayaked to "Gone with the Wind." After twenty or thirty minutes of paddling, I could see a dark mast coming out of the water.

Oh no. My heart sunk. Just as my worst fears had predicted, the boat must have starting floating into deeper water when the tide came in, only to flood with water through a previously unnoticed hole in the hull.

Those thoughts lasted only a few seconds, because I soon could discern the entire hull, above water and rocking around. Whew. I started breathing again. And I said to myself, "You silly goober. Just get to the boat, and get the job done."

It was see-sawing back and forth in the water--both good news and bad news. The good news was that it was floating. The bad news is that it was still resting on the keel in the exact place where I left it.

I hopped on board and started to go through to motions of moving the boat to deeper water. I tried every trick I knew to get it off the bottom. I attached one of the sheets to a rope harness and leaned, jumped, and swung out as far as I could, but I couldn't get her to lean far enough over to get off the bottom. She was stuck.

I was already a little wet from the kayak ride, so I jumped into the water and tried pushing her out. But it wouldn't budge.

Finally, I tied a rope to a line running up the mast, walked off to the side and pulled as hard as I could--hoping I could tilt the boat enough to get the keel off, and let her float to safety.

It was close, but it just wasn't enough. I couldn't get her moving, and a full hour and a half had passed, and the tide was on its way out. Since I was cold, I crawled back into the boat, crawled into the cabin, bundled up and grabbed a little sleep. At daylight, I left the boat laying on its side, came home, showered, and went to class.

I have two tests on Thursday, so today will be a boat-free day. My next opportunity will be Saturday morning at from 7 till 8. High tide will be more than 5 feet.