Rescue Me...

I was told things would slow down in August... no sign of that, yet. Job security. Saturday was my "blue shirt" day, but I didn't get much time working on boats. After driving the breakfast cruise, I did some interior work on one of the cruiseboats, then got a call from the manager to find and bring in a boater whose motor had died... at the very northern part of the lake. The Park Service called it in to us. It took about 45 minutes to find them and then over an hour to tow them back to their marina. In rapidly deteriorating weather. Our ride was rough; the 3 guys in the boat we were towing got plenty wet thanks to the waves, wind, and rain.


We didn't quite get back to the marina when there was a call to rescue 6 kayakers who had beached the boats and were hiding under them because of the rain and lightning. One of our other boats had gathered up the people; I was driving the metal boat, so we were able to run the boat up on the shore to gather up the abandoned kayaks. The dock hand that was with me hopped off the bow in the rain and gusts and hauled the kayaks to the boat where I tried to find a place to put them. Let me clarify that: the dock hand picked up two double kayaks by himself and handed them off to me. I looked around for two more people to help me lift them, but there was no one else on the boat... those tandems are heavy! The second gust front was blowing down on us when I backed the boat off the shore. With all that weight in the back of the boat, I couldn't trim the bow down, so it was a slow ride back to the marina.

That turned out to be my "short day" this week: only 9 1/2 hours. The other 4 days are all "13s." We've had nice mornings and quickly building thunderstorms in the afternoons. We had to cancel one afternoon cruise on Saturday, but all the rest have gone out. Last night on the sunset cruise, we started out with a relatively calm lake that turned to gusty and choppy on the ride home. I could see it blowing in from the north and let the passengers know what was coming... no problems... well, a few "ohhhhhhs" when the waves would fill the windshield. The first mate and I told stories on the way back in and everyone seemed fine with the "whitewater ride."