Another ritual of Fall is the winterizing, shrink-wrapping and storage of Lady Pontoon. She's female because that is the nautical way and she has rather wide hips. She carries no name as that is another tradition of not naming smaller vessels. However our other same length, yet slimmer, fishing boat is named the SheilaBeast despite the prohibition and actually not being aware that the no-no existed.
With such a fickle weather pattern, it was not a priority to take the boat out of the water. Finally a stretch of good weather in middle October prompted my call to the Marina. Nope-everyone had the same idea. Had to postpone a week and of course the weather cooperated with blue skies and balmy temps- Not. Tuesday at least it wasn't raining, however temps were chilly and wind was "a'blowing'. Waiting until 1:00 pm for the warmest part of the day (45) we could not wait any longer as clouds were starting to move in. Triple layers and gloves. The OH just went the whole route and wore foul weather gear.
All the bouys are removed by this date so knowledge of the lake is the only way to keep from a shallow water disaster. Couldn't open up that 90 horse for quite a ways and upon doing so instantly regretted it as it just accelerated the cooling effect. Oddly enough we were the only boat on the lake, though a duck blind built on a scaffold covered with branches was quite an intriguing sight.
DIGRESS: I have never claimed to be much of a deckhand. In fact for our first cruiser type boat I had shirts made. One was Captain of course, one for the daughter was deckhand and mine simply claimed "Deck Fluff". I wore it proudly being chauffered while basking in the sun.
Since I was not the one driving and parking at the marina dock with a brisk eastward wind pushing, my role was whipping the rope over the deck posts or, after missing that, trying to nab a deck post to bring her around...Massive fail of course. Being an ill-prepared deckhand, I managed to assist in hitting the dock first time around. Back up and try again, this time with the gate open (which would have helped the captain see the dock). Another grab and a miss but close enough for another run and leap to the dock rope in hand. But by only snaring the bow rope and stupidly pulling on it, the pesky wind pushed the boat all the way around sideways. Another method is desperately needed. Fortunately I did not note anyone around to watch this docking debacle.
Deserting me on the dock (I would have too) the Captain took her out and turned around. Then he scrambled around the outside deck and fastened the ropes together so it could be swung over the deck posts properly (Oh) . I idly watched thinking wouldn't it be funny if he fell overboard and had to swim to shore. Later this idle thought was horribly echoed when the OH said he only realized afterward that he left the boat in gear rather than neutral and if he'd made the plunge it would have been by-by boat. Funny after owning boats for 30+ years one still makes mistakes. As I said before, a competent deckhand would have avoided the drama. How boring.
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