From the Boating Archives!

"We're in a bind here," shouted the boater from the sandbar, "can you pull us off?" In most cases any boater would gladly help another boater in distress but this case was different. The stranded vessel was completely surrounded by sand and was a good two feet from water.

"How long have you been aground," we asked.

"We were shelling and the water just receded," answered the young woman walking around the boat. After checking the tide chart we noticed that the next high tide was eight hours away so we explained the situation to the stranded couple and offered a solution. "We'll nose our boat into shallow water and you can wade out to us. We'll take you to the nearest dock or wherever and you can call some friends, okay?"

"We can't do that, this is a rental boat and we have to have it back in an hour. Just throw us a line and give us a pull," said the young man holding a short dock line and making a throwing motion as a demonstration.

"No can do! You're stuck for at least five more hours and then you'll need a towboat. Come with us and we'll take you back to the marina where you rented the boat!" At that point the young woman decided to take the offer and she gathered up her belongings and started wading toward our boat.

"Put an anchor on the sand bar and bury it. Do you have a second anchor?" The young man tossed the anchor over the bow and climbed onto the sand. He waded into waist deep water and pulled himself up onto the bow. He tried to pull his companion up but she waited until we carefully spun the boat around, turned off the engine and tossed out an kedge anchor.

"You could have at least tried," our angry passenger said before taking a seat on the bow.

Captain Rick, our resident retired airplane pilot answered him. "You don't follow up stupidity with stupidity, son."

"He told me he'd been boating all his life," his female companion mused.

We took them to their rental company and waited outside to see what the outcome would be. There was some gnashing of teeth and muted anger, mostly from the young man but the lady wasn't thrilled. After a bit two young rental company employees came out to the dock and started to leave in a boat about the same size as ours.

"Are you going out to check out the grounded boat," Captain Rick asked. They answered in the affirmative. "Save your time it's to far up the bank!"

"The lady paid for the rental and she's on the hook for the deposit and more," said the young man. The other one added, "We understand he didn't take much care to secure the boat."

Since we had a designated driver with us we decided to reward ourselves with a beer at the restaurant next door. We ordered some appetizers and a round of beer. Enjoyed them immensely and even had a second round of beer but all good things must come to an end because we had an hour of running and idling back to our dock.

"It's all taken care of by the couple in the corner," said the bartender. Well why didn't you mention that earlier? We'd have ordered a fillet mignon or two, we admonished him.

I sent my companions to our boat and went over to thank them. Captain Rick wouldn't have been as gracious as I was trying to be. "Thank you for the beverages and food," I started. The young man got up and left the table. "I'd be upset too but I think he's angry at the wrong people."

"He's mad at himself too but I'm finding out that he's not the person I thought he was," she said wistfully. "I guess it's better learned now!"

"You bet," I said. "Makes you wonder what else he told you that wasn't quite true?"

She thanked me again and left. On the way to the dock I went through the rental office. A nice young woman was behind the counter. "I'm the one who brought your stranded boaters back. Maybe it's time to update your indoctrination?" Boat safe!

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