Or as one might also title this
"A Romantic Evening Cruise with Chuck & Brian"
Oddly it seems that we are rapidly approaching the "half-way" point of summer. (Which I cannot quite believe, looking at the thermostat it seems we're half-way to the thresh-hold of hell.) Odder still, dear husband and I have yet to enjoy one of last summers favorite activities: The Sunday-Sunset Cruise. Finally this past weekend, we determine that this is the day. We start re-arranging the stable to free the boat from it's wintering spot and ready it to head out that evening.
Sounds simple, right? Not exactly. You see, every year that darling watercraft seems to collect about 8 years of dead bugs that require the shop vac and a pair of knee boots to properly dispatch. And while going about this task (still in the garage mind you), yours truly jumps a little too quickly at a "bug back-draft" and was nearly knocked unconscious by the garage door opener. We'll now call this "Sign #1". Naturally, once I was done removing the bugs from the boat crevices, I got carried away and vacuumed their little carcasses from the entire garage.
Then comes washing off a winters worth of sawdust, regular dust, drywall spackling compound, and potting dirt. I did manage to both avoid a concussion and also scrub the garage floor in the process. That's what we like to call a double-win!
Finally, we give the engine a test, fill the garage with enough exhaust fumes to kill any remaining bugs, and hook up the trailer. We pause a moment to grease the fittings at which time we manage to blow out a fitting hose rated to 45,000 psi (in layman's terms, you should be able to re-route a fire hydrant through that thing). We'll now call this "Sign #2".
Eventually we are at the river, launched with no issues, and flying upstream grinning like kids and enjoying our "convertible sports car". We do some donuts, scare some wildlife, irritate some gypsy farmer-fisherman, and make it nearly to our floating spot where the water is cool and clear and clean (er). As we approach said location, I think to myself, "We're probably far enough..." Which we'll now call Sign #3. Instead I say, "Looks pretty shallow..." at which point dear husband slows the boat down to an idle and it proceeds to hit the bottom and ingest rocks into the engine. Game. Over.
I now know how fun it is to paddle a boat for 6 people with one oar. It's, well, not. Naturally, rocks don't generally belong INSIDE an engine and thus the engine is now far more useful as a boat anchor than our actual boat anchor. So, we call for help. After being transferred several times, we are told help is on the way. About a half hour later, the Poolesville, MD Fire and Rescue team arrives. Chuck and Brian. They are polite and helpful and radio back that one boat will do nicely and they will take us downstream.
So we tie the two boats together (which seems slightly odd to me and I'm a grandiose amateur) and down the river we go. Seven. Miles. All the while joking about how similar this is to one of those fancy Gondola rides in Venice, they just need a couple of hats and some fancy music. Now, I've never been to Venice, but I'm pretty sure those fancy Gondola rides don't involve swarms of river bugs that could choke a lawnmower.
At about the half-way point our cheeky friends with no singing voice are advised by the good folks on the other end of the radio that because they are a Maryland dispatch, they are to take us to the Maryland launch down the river instead of the Virginia launch. It is lost on them that while they are nearly directly across the river, they are an hours drive apart. And as the sinking feeling begins to set in we are treated to what it must sound like if you drag a fiberglass boat down a highway with giant rocks in it at 30 miles an hour. It's going to be a really, really long night.
Not long thereafter, the motor belonging to our good friends Chuck and Brian begins to smell like a gas grill on the Fourth of July and I'm wishing I had a hot dog or some smore's as I'm starting to get pretty hungry. Much finagling of the lines is done to now tow our little guppy directly behind them. Did I mention that the engine was overheating? And cruising just above an idle, the oxygen deprivation from the fumes took very little time to turn me into a complete babbling loon. As I'm chattering on like a little kid hopped up on sugar who just watched a wookie and an alien ride up together on a dinosaur and ask me the way to Oz, the familiar sound of a helicopter can be heard in the distance.
Sure enough, the Calvary has arrived. The local police helicopter has come to provide additional lighting with their giant searchlight by circling around us for the last hour and a half or our little journey. As if we weren't mortified enough by our unfortunate predicament, there's nothing like a helicopter with a searchlight to make sure the world knows it.
Finally we arrive at the Maryland launch. We tie up the boat and climb to the shore. Where there are no less than twenty of the County's Finest with rescue boats as far as the eye can see. Bass boats, giant inflatable boats you could use for a beach invasion of Delaware, little rowing-style boats with motors as big as my car, and a canoe. I was a tad disappointed that they didn't have a cabin cruiser or a hovercraft, but still, an impressive display.
Four. Hours. Later. We have been stuck in traffic on 495 (yes, even at midnight on a Sunday that sucker is backed up for miles), helped ourselves past the closed park gate to retrieve our vehicle and trailer, driven the hour back to Maryland, loaded our wounded soldier, driven the hour back home and stowed the thing back in it's garage spot without waking up the dogs or the neighbors. This morning after sleeping for one hour and 45 minutes and driving dear husband to the airport, I came back home and for grins crawled underneath our little vessel.
And retrieved this little wonder from the jet drive propeller:
The Rock that Launched a Dozen Ships
(It's going to make a nice paperweight anyway)
