Shake Up Cruise (Day One)

 

At least one good moment

 

Hans finally managed to get a week of vacation and we decided to use it and take a small cruise down towards Caya Costa. We haven't gone away on the boat for more than a weekend since Thanksgiving of 2012 which I fondly recall as 'The Turkey Tour'. This trip is going to be remembered as the Shake Up Cruise (we've already experienced a couple of shake down cruises, this one is just shaking me up).

And just like the Turkey Tour where we managed to run aground within the first few miles and Hans broke a tooth, we've already had our first brush with excitement at our anchorage just around the corner from our marina. We had been sitting here on the hook for just a couple of hours and I thought I should write something on our blog to commemorate our first day of vacation but what's to write about sitting in an achorage you've sat in a bazillion times before?

And then honest to god, I'd just fired up my iPad when I heard Hans say, "What the hell?" I looked up and noticed a dinghy floating a few feet behind us and stupidly asked, "Why isn't there anyone in that dinghy?" And then I realized it was ours. Our painter had simply come apart in the middle and and the dinghy was bobbing away from us in a very jaunty see you later kinda way.

Everything happened at once; Hans jumped into his swimsuit, I opened the lazarette and dug around for his flippers, and Wilbur got in everyone's way. At first it appeared the dinghy was right behind us and not moving but in that minute or so of scrambling around it had drifted quite far from our stern. Hans leaped off the boat and took off swimming. And wouldn't you know it, Wilbur scrambled down the steps and only paused for a moment before he did his best Underdog impression and took a great dramatic leap into the water. Hans couldn't hear me yelling to him and found out the hard way that Wilbur had followed him when great big pitty paws raked down his back. I grabbed my camera and got a couple of quick videos but I had to put it down because things weren't going well.

Hans had to keep fending Wilbur off and then he had to turn around and swim back toward the boat in order to get Wilbur to come back to me. While I was yanking the dog back onto the boat I had to point Hans in the direction of where one of his flippers was floating because of course it fell off during his fracas with Wilbur. By now the dinghy was almost a distant memory and I could barely see it on the horizon where it was heading toward the eastern shore as there was apparently some kind of dinghy party it was late getting to. Now I was starting to worry about sharks (I always worry about sharks) and Hans was getting harder for me to see. I shot down below and turned on the instruments in case I was going to need to broadcast our location and when I came back up my heart jumped into my throat when I didn't see Hans. It took a moment but I spotted that bald head and he was still no where close to the dinghy. My heart jumped again when he turned around and waved his hands over his head in what I thought was a distress signal. I was about to grab the radio but I could see he was making good progress back to the Knotty Cat and soon he was back aboard. I forgot about the dinghy for a minute when I saw Hans' lip bleeding and his chest and back covered in bloody welts thanks to Wilbur's lifesaving efforts. If I'd been worried about sharks before... As for his arm waving, Hans was trying to tell me he couldn't see the dinghy and was trying get me to point it out. I'm just as glad I didn't know what he wanted because he was never going to get there on his own, and even if he did the current was so strong I don't know how he could have rowed back.

Wilbur was frantic and screaming up a storm while Hans was in the water and I had to tie him up to keep him from jumping back in

 

While getting the anchor up I managed to keep an eye on the dinghy and by now it was nearly on shore but still in water deep enough for us to manage. We were pretty close when a sailboat motored right past, snagged it for us and then shoved it to us as they went by. I caught it with a boat hook and secured it to the stern. Needless to say when we re-anchored that sucker got trussed up tighter than its ever been.

 

After his lip stopped bleeding

 

What a mess

 

By the time things settled down the boat was filthy. Wilbur shook salty dog hair everywhere, for some reason the floor of the cockpit was covered in muddy water, and all the stuff that I'd yanked from the lazarette was tossed everywhere.

When we finally got everthing squared away Hans stated, "Well, this was day one and we're only a couple of miles into this journey, what do you suppose will happen tomorrow?"

He probably shouldn't have asked that.

 

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