Little Grey...

Earlier this week, my friend Todd called and invited some friends and I to go out on his boat for a day filled with tubing, water skiing and knee boarding. Now, I didn’t have the luxury of growing up with a boat, so I jumped at the chance to spend a day on the lake. Hearing the excitement in my voice, Todd took the opportunity to tell me that his boat wasn’t the nicest boat, but if I didn’t care that it wasn’t a brand new boat, then it would be a blast. I didn’t care if the boat was brand spanking new. I only cared that we were going to be on a boat... or so I thought…

It turned out that Todd’s definition of “not the nicest boat” was quite different from mine. I figured that the boat would at least be made out of fiberglass, but this boat was just metal…It also had an engine that stuck up out of the water…similar to the kind that you see on a fishing boat, and it technically only sat 4 people. To top it all off, the gas tank wasn’t attached to the boat. Todd had three tanks that sat on the boat deck…when one tank ran out of gas, we would simply remove the hose from the empty tank and attach it to a full tank of gas. Needless to say, I was a little worried about whether or not the boat would be able to handle a day on the lake.

After getting over the initial shock of the boat, we all headed out on the lake to water ski and knee board. A little ways away from the dock, the engine on the boat just stopped. We were only five minutes into our fun on the lake, and we were already experiencing problems. Things were not looking good! Luckily, Todd was able to fix whatever the problem was, and we were able to actually do something other than sit on the lake. Everything was going just fine, until Todd decided we should take him back to get his Red Vines out of the truck.

Instead of waiting for him at the dock, we dropped him off and drove around the lake until he returned…this seemed to be a good idea at the time, but it quickly turned into a bad one (I blame the stupid Red Vines for this…). As soon as we were on the other side of the lake, the engine stopped again…and Jordan couldn’t get it to start. In the process of turning the key back and forth, somehow Jordan broke the key off in the ignition. So, now we were in the middle of the lake on a boat with no engine and a no key to even try to make the boat start. Did I mention we were slowly approaching the dam??

With no way to start the boat, everyone on board started getting slightly worried about how we were going to get back to the dock. Worst case scenario, we would simply have to swim the boat back to the dock…but there happened to be these stupid girls on board that refused to get in the water…but that’s another story. Anyway, before we crashed into the dam, the Search and Rescue boat was able to come give us a tow back to the dock. Todd figured out what was wrong with the boat, and he got the broken key out of the ignition. After all the stress, we decided to call it a day and head back home...

All in all, the day ended up being a blast. Yes, the boat died more times than I can count on two hands, and we almost had to swim the boat back into the dock...but at least I got to spend the day on a boat.