Mishaps, but Fun

Posted by Michelle on Jun 26, 2011 | 0 comments

Sheesh, who would ever thought you could have so many mishaps in one day of boating…and still have a good day? John was up bright and early all gung ho and ready to go. I, on the other hand, was in dire need of a cup of coffee (which I never got, by the way) to get going. But, we were off and running at around 9:30 this morning after a quick stop at the gas station to fill up Our Family Boat for a fun day on the lake.

We stopped and chatted with Ranger Tom at the Lake Mead entry station. John wanted to attempt beaching the boat today and asked Ranger Tom if he knew of a good place. Ranger Tom was happy to oblige and steered us toward Sandy Cove.

Mishap #1: We were a little perturbed when we got to the Callville Bay launch ramp to find out that they had closed the new ramp and only had the smaller, older launch ramp open. They had a guy standing at the waiting line directing people to the ramp, which was helpful. The old ramp is much smaller, but it has a much bigger dock, so we waited our turn and launched in no time at all. I had a much better time getting the truck out of the ramp; John had shown me a trick to use to not slide backwards into the water. It worked like a charm.

We launched the boat and I went to park the truck. I was lucky to find a spot, but it was in a land far, far away in Lot C. I was lucky the golf cart girl came along to give me a ride down to the dock. That would have been a long walk! I hopped in the boat and we took off at no-wake speed out of the bay. Bridget learned that ducks LOVE potato chips. We had a trail of ducks young and old following us out of the bay while Bridget fed them.

 

Mishap #2: We got out of the bay and Bridget wanted me punch it. Anything to make the kid happy!  I punched it and the engine started cutting out. What could that be?  We didn’t even get 100 feet out of the marina before the engine completely died!  John looked at the engine and at the battery. It took him a short time to figure out that the problem had something to do with the battery cable. Apparently, the cable cover melted unto the battery a bit, causing the cable to come loose. John cleaned it and got it all hooked up. We tried starting the engine again and it had flooded.

Of course, Bridget thought we were going to be stuck out on the lake forever and that we would die of starvation. She doesn’t take to mishaps very well. It took it few tries, but it finally started. We took it around for a couple of spins and it seemed to work just fine. (Bridget was happy that we weren’t going to die of starvation or heat exhaustion or some other thing!)

 

We got out on the lake and drove around quite a bit to charge up the alternator. We finally stopped the boat and cut the engine in order to see if it would start again. It started just fine. We took a little break and John and Bridget went swimming. The water was very nice and there was hardly any wind.

Mishap #3: John decided that he would try skiing. He had picked up a couple pairs of skis at some garage sale some time ago and this was the first time we brought them along. John hooked up the handle onto the towrope and threw the skis into the water. With just a little bit of trouble, he got the skis on and got a hold of the rope. He was all set, so I punched the engine. He got up for about three seconds and then fell right into the water. He said I wasn’t going fast enough. So I circled around and picked him up and he got all set again. I punched the engine again. He got up and promptly fell down again. This time he said I was going too fast. Picky, picky, picky!  He got set again and I did my best to get him up and keep him up. No go. He fell right back into the water. Being glutton for punishment, he wanted to try one more time. Well, I don’t think I need to tell you how the last attempt turned out. That was the end of skiing for the day. Oh, and somehow, when John was putting the skis back on the wake tower storage racks, the water sports flag fell into the water. John tried to rescue it before it hit the bottom, but alas, it was gone.

Mishap #4: We figured that we would do something that we were sure we could do…tubing. We tried to get Bridget to sit in the tube correctly and she wasn’t having any part of it. She said that she wanted to watch Daddy do it and learn from him. Actually, she decided that she wanted to drive the boat and pull John while tubing. We started out okay, but I guess I was giving Bridget excessive instruction and somehow we managed to tip the tube and John fell hard into the lake. Poor guy. Okay, swimming it was. How could we possibly mess up swimming?

Mishap #5: We pulled the boat off to the side and Bridget and I hopped into the water. We swam around for a little bit and then decided it was lunch time. After lunch, we drove back toward Callville Bay. Bridget was up for more swimming, so we pulled off to the side a bit and Bridget and John jumped in. I was starting to feel a little nauseous and overheated. After a while, I asked John if we could go home. My head was killing me!  This would have been a complete mishap if I threw up, but thank goodness, that didn’t happen.

We motored back to the launch ramp and the ducks were waiting for their afternoon snack of more potato chips from Bridget. We waited quite a while for our turn at the ramp, but when it was our turn, it took us very little time to get the boat out of the water. John was a sweetheart and let me off the hook getting everything set to leave. He told me to wait in the air-conditioned truck while he unloaded the boat and prepared it for towing. Other than having to stop twice on the way back home to get the boat key out of the back of the truck and hooking up the skis again, the drive home was quite uneventful, compared to all of the adventures we had during the day.

Even though there were a number of things that went wrong, it is always great to get outside and be together as a family. We are looking forward to our next trip on July 5th!