Too Much Rain

Anyone who is reading this has probably been the recipient of unheard-of amounts of rain this past week. Here in my little corner of the world it has been no different. On Tuesday I finished work at the Forest Service, and drove through heavy rain on the way to the lake. As I went down the hill to the dock, I could see the bow of my boat but not the stern. “Oh oh–this doesn’t look good,” I thought to myself.  It had rained about 3″ that day which was enough to nearly fill the stern. The lower the transom got to the water, the easier it was for waves to wash in. By the time I arrived, the motor’s propeller was resting on the bottom of the lake, with the bow angled up at a 45⁰ angle. The boat was tied to the dock however, and there was so much strain on the rope from the sinking boat that I couldn’t untie it. I eventually just cut the rope and tried to pull the bow end into shore. It was like trying to pull a whale onto the beach with a shoelace. Finally there was nothing else for me to do but jump in the water with all my clothes on and try to push the water-filled boat to shore. I got it close enough that I could attach the winch line to the bow and winched it up inch by inch. The lake level had risen so much that even when the boat was at the top of the ramp, the drain hole was still underwater. So I had to put the plug in and bail the whole boat out. By that time I was freezing and decided to leave the investigation of the motor until the next day.

Because the battery was totally submerged, the gas tank was upside down, and the motor underwater, I didn’t hold much hope for a resurrection. But the next day, with a little help from the Elbow Lake Angels, and some Seafoam, and some ether, we got it going. As I headed across the lake, one of the guys told me to watch out for floating docks because the lake was full of them. I made it back to my Island without hitting any docks, charged the battery, and put in new gas, However, I had to work the following day and was feeling quite insecure about my luck and my motor. I was up before 5:00 a.m. to make sure I had plenty of time to fix problems and still get to work on time. It was a very windy day. The motor started right up, but every time I pushed the choke in, it died. After half an hour of fiddling with it, I decided to row out of our sheltered bay and let the wind carry me across the lake to my car. It went fine until the wind caught me sideways and I had to row like an Amazon to keep heading in the correct direction. And then my oar snapped, right at the oarlock. So there I was in the middle of the windswept flooded lake with a motor that didn’t work and one oar. The wind blew me onto some rocks and into some trees. I was trying to protect my propeller from the rocks and my head from the tree limbs. Finally I got angry and decided to just throw the motor into gear from its racing choked speed. It worked! Probably not too healthy for the motor, but I got to work on time. That night I installed the set of new oars that had been sitting in the shed for a couple years, and all is good!
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This lake adventure was not like the derecho that Alan experienced in Iowa. We all have our stories to tell. But he doesn’t have a website!