The things you see....

So I know I have been remiss this half season with the posts, I know all 6 of you are getting concerned..... Anyway, here we go with some stuff from the season.

Thursday August 9th, 2012:

I took a couple of hours of PTO and headed out to the boat. It was blowing about 13kts out of the North. I had yet to sail Papillon on my own and I had a few chores to do on the boat. I had lunch and got to organizing some things and puttering around in the cabin. I came up to the cockpit and looked out over the bow, towards the exit/entrance of the bay to the rest of the lake. I see a pontoon boat coming pretty much right at me. Luckily they turned more in to the bay away form me but they were still about 30 feet or so from me, so it was close. I looked down for some reason in to the cabin and I hear the sound of metal bashing in to metal.

I look over to Port and I see the No Wake buoy disappear beneath the previously mentioned pontoon. The lady at the helm slams the boat in reverse and it ain't going anywhere. She hit it perfectly, dead center. Now this is a rental pontoon which had some nice older ladies on it. As I tell folks, I think Gladys and the book/wine club went out for a day on the lake. Now a No Wake buoy is not small. They are about 3 feet tall and pretty damn dig around too. No idea how the hell no one saw it. Maybe that explains how the were heading directly for me and then saw me thankfully in enough time to change course, directly over the buoy.

Sitting on the buoy, its under them.....

So after a couple of minutes I shout over and ask if they are OK. They reply yes and that the boat rental place was on the way to tow them off. About 30 minutes later a power/ski boat shows with a couple of 20 something on it and they throw a line and tie on. The spin the pontoon and the wine club passengers around and the buoy underneath. The gun it and drag the buoy and the boat damn near me and finally the buoy tumbles out from under the pontoon. The guys (boys) on the power boat laugh about how far they dragged the buoy and I am kinda speechless as I am realizing when the wind changes to the south my boat will swing around and bash upon the newly moved buoy.

Its a little close now....

So I call the city and let them know what is up and they assure me that they will get out there ASAP to move the buoy. After that event the winds were building to around 18 and as I had not sailed the boat yet on my own orin those conditions, I figured I had had enough excitement for one day and headed home. I stopped by the boat a couple of days later and the buoy was back where it belonged.



As the title says, the things you see......