Another rescue...

Yesterday afternoon I returned from doing a town and fuel trip. On my way up "the creek" I passed a boat that did not look right.

If you have looked at the aerial view of Broad Creek, you see that the fingers of the creek don't really go anywhere. Those fingers end in shallow water. In the picture to the right, the left most lowest finger is the only entry to the creek for a boat of any size. At low tide that entry is about 4 feet deep. Obviously if you are driving a boat larger than a small flats boat (the local equivalent of a bass boat), you have to know what you are doing and follow the channels. By the way, the areas that don't look deep are not deep. The water is only a foot deep or shallower during low tide.

But back to the story...   Yesterday I passed a catamaran sailboat the looked like it was aground on the shallows next to the creek.  I realized if they were, there was little I could do to help them. That is what TowBoatUS is for.  But this morning that same boat was now in the creek near Broad Key.  Hmm.  I watched the boat for a long time. No life was was evident. I did some tasks and checked the boat again. No activity.

You can imagine my fantasies. The boat was adrift from who knows where.  The solitary captain was an old man and had died. There are drug activities around here; once a shipment is delivered the boats are often just set adrift. And on and on...

I evaluated the wind and tide and realized if it were truly adrift, there was potential for it to drift into areas of my responsibility. I did not want to deal with the that boat as it approached the boat house or the dock unattended.  It was time for me to act.

I got the RIB (Remember?  Rigid Inflatable Boat) ready to go.  It is a squeeze between the big boat and the side of the boathouse. As soon as I was committed I saw movement on the boat. But too late - I was going to investigate.  I pulled along side and yelled "Ahoy". Yes I really used the word ahoy. This is, after all, a marine environment. That got those on board into action.

I was greeted by friendly people. I told them of my concerns for them and why I was hailing them. They told me of their plight. A catamaran is a sailboat but it also has two diesel engines. The owners had entered Broad Creek but had lost an engine. While it seems like a good idea to have two engines, a catamaran places these engines very wide apart. This configuration is good for close quarter handling but not good if only one engine is operational. (Here I go getting technical again...) The bottom line is they were having engine problems. They were in good spirits but had gone through the trouble shooting they were comfortable doing.  Once I knew they were not in peril, I bid them farewell and made a final statement that I was a fairly good trouble shooter if they continued to have a problem.

That was all it took.  They were ready to ask for help right then. I returned to the island to retrieve a few tools. Then back to the boat. Once I was on board, I found the issue in less than 10 minutes; a loose electrical connector on the starboard engine starter. I repaired the problem and settled in for a nice bit of social time.

For those of you for whom I did networking and computer work... Remember the times it seemed like I just touched the computer and it was healed?   This was a similar situation. But for this touch I got a tour of a nice catamaran and some new friends.  I expect to see them again.

cz, 2015 5/7/2015