Again With the Rain

It rained during today’s rescue mission. It is my own personal outboard curse.

Unrelated, yet sort of related: my brother left in his $500 car, two active young children, and estranged-but-working-on-getting-back-together wife for their eleven hour drive home. Halfway there, they broke down. (Late at night.)

So this time, he got to have the vehicular adventure.

I can share. In fact, sometimes, I like to share.

Anyway, the kids LOVED it, because they got to ride in the tow truck, sleep in a hotel, eat breakfast in bed, watch Sponge Bob and go to Chuck E Cheese which was conveniently located next door to the shop, ride in a rental car and undoubtedly learn a few new, choice, four-letter words.

So after a five hour wait, the shop ‘guessed’ what was wrong with the car as they didn’t have the correct diagnostic equipment. So, they charged my brother $80 for their ‘timely’ guess, which was incorrect. He decided to have it towed to another shop who had the problem diagnosed and fixed within an hour. By then, they were on the road in the rental car as both adults were supposed to be at work (which they so obviously weren’t).

Anyway, he made it home and later took the trek back to get the car and return the rental. All is well. For now.

And we made it safely around in our vehicles–although I just about got lost in the woods (not really) trying to shortcut my way to the cottage along a road that was supposed to be there according to a map from 1902. Yeah, no road. Not even sure if it ever even went in. I was okay, but the bear scat and remnants of hobo camps and the fact that it took me forever to make my way through the tall junipers that hid the uneven ground, had me a bit freaked at times. Basically, I crashed and did controlled falling through the woods. And just about came out in someone’s back yard. But I didn’t and I didn’t get eaten by bears or have to explain my crashing presence in a hobo camp.

Where was I? Oh yes, so vehicle adventures for me–okay. Boat adventures–cursed. Well, ‘cursed’ might be a bit strong. Let’s try…a bit bumpy? Yes, my adventures in boating were a bit bumpy… No, that’s not right either. Whatever…you get what I mean.

So, still tinkering with the outboard–the engine would sputter a bit whenever we put the cover back on. Basically, we just about had it running smoothly in time to winterize it. Okay, we did get it running well in time to winterize it. DOH! But back to the story. Hubby went puddling about in the canoe with our daughter. And the wind and current picked up and he found it hard to make his way across the river in the gusts that would push the canoe back as fast as he could paddle forward.

Once I realized that he was struggling, I went into super-duper-rescue mission mode. Read that as: took motor cover off and crossed the river. Got closeish–didn’t want to run him over with the crazy current and blowing wind. And whoosh threw him the buoyant heaving line. As it arched across the space between us, I realized, this is not going to work. So, I let go of my end. I had thought of tying it to the boat, but with an engine spinning with no cover and rocks and current and shore and traffic, my mind was busy and realized the wussy heaving line wasn’t going to make it through the wind. So, I drove closer and got to be rescue hero.

Then was the fun task of crossing the river as gusts blew the outboard off course, the sky opened up and dumped rain. And I mean, opened up. And then all the morons in their speed boats who are all trying to crowd between the channel markers all at once because of the rain. Oh yeah, and the canoe is not following me nicely. It is cutting across back and forth behind me. That had to have freaked out at least one or two other boaters. Go slow and canoe follows well, but wind blows me off course. Hmmm…such choices.

But we made it and made it look…easy? Not sure…but we did it. It was cool getting to be the rescuer. But again, what it is and the outboard, rescue missions and pouring rain? How often did it actually pour rain during the day when we were there? Pretty much whenever the outboard was involved in rescuing. At least this time the people weren’t out on their boathouse watching and analyzing like a few days earlier. I hope that they got to see the boat working. I’m sure they heard it. It is stinking loud!