In yesterday’s post, I glossed over the boat trip we went on the other day.
We were all looking forward to this day out on the water. My uncle doesn’t have a boat these days. He always had one when we were younger, and only gave it up a couple of years ago. When Brian confirmed his days off, reserving a boat was the first thing my uncle did. We were positively chuffed to bits.
Saturday rolls around. It’s Memorial Day weekend, and it’s FUCKING GORGEOUS outside. Sure, the temperature is hot. However, there’s a bit of a breeze, and we’re going to be zipping around the flats on a boat. We have our floaties ready, the cooler packed, and we’re covered in sunscreen and swimwear.
On the dock, a deckhand gave us the rundown on emergency gear. He warned us that the water patrol was out and randomly inspecting vessels. The deckhand explained the gas tank was full, but none of the gauges on the boat work. There’s plenty of fuel, but we just have to take his word for it. We climbed aboard. I noticed something weird in the trees across the channel, and wondered if I should be worried.
As the deckhand untied us, he left us with one last word of advice. “The steering on this is really loose”, he warned. “It’s got a bit of play and you’re going to have to turn the wheel more than you think”.
A BIT OF PLAY.
My uncle’s not an inexperienced boater. This fact was very fortunate, because that boat fucking sucked. My uncle spent the entire time turning the wheel to either side in a feeble attempt to keep us headed in the correct direction.
We were in manatee habitat, so we needed to keep our speed to a minimum in a lot of areas. We’re in the canal, and puttering around. We reach the end of the little canal and make a left at Monkey Island.
My uncle goosed the throttle and nothing happened. Sure, the outboard motor revved up like it wanted to do something, but nope. Eventually, we figured out that the boat could get up to something that resembled speed if he barely increased the throttle over time.
Unfortunately, the unpredictable steering, resulted with us on the wrong side of a buoy and in the really shallow shit at one point. I’m not sure if matters would have been better if we hadn’t been in one of our sporadic bursts of speed. It certainly didn’t help matters.
After about an hour of looking, motoring around at almost idle speed, we found a place to drop anchor and swim. Unfortunately, there was no rope in the boat. We had no way to tie our floaties without going out to sea, and none of us wanted to just stand in the shallow water, so we didn’t stay long.
The trip back in was just as bad, if not worse.
When we returned to the dock, another deckhand was tied us up and asked how our excursion was. My uncle told him the truth, the boat was a fucking trash heap. They were lucky he’s an experienced boater and could handle it, because if they sent anyone out they’d be calling for a tow because it shouldn’t even be in the water.
The deckhand didn’t even pretend to be surprised – or concerned – about it.
