Chronicle: Yammer and jet boat

The boat had arrived newly imported from USA and stood like a motorized spear in the yard. Take me to sea, launch me, it screamed. 

With chromed headers and a shiny bird catcher it just screamed
–  Set me lakeside allreay!
– You don’t just take off on your own now, you wait on the boys you hear me, Myran had said before taking off to work.

I would just hit the start button. The big block motor started off with an intake- and exhaust sound that wiped the short memory. The head said click and coincidentally, the tow hitch said click as well. Fifteen minutes later I was bobbing along with the waves. Blue sky, blue water and one rookie blue behind the wheel.

I had never driven a jet boat. Imagine being 57 years old and still have first-time-experiences. You switch gears like how you would with an automatic. The drive went in silky smooth and I pressed down the foot gas.
-Moooooaaaapp the carburetor sounded and the boat was suddenly on the opposite side of the lake. This very lake which I have been dragging around in with miscellaneous floating devices. Wom, wom, wom, dig, dig, dig, foot by foot over the big water. Now it’s like:
– WRAAAAM and then you’re in the next county.

Eased up on the gas, turned around, put the pedal to the metal and, spit, snap, crackle and pop, silence. Pushed start again and got three slow turns. The battery I had collected from the throw away pile in the cold garage. My head went all silent. “Cluck” was the sound echoing in my head from backwash in my own head as the short time memory came back.

Surveyed my surroundings. What was I doing here?
In the middle on the lake, no electricity, no paddle, no cellphone, no fried chicken. I had a broom stick, a piece of nylon string and leakage in the transom. This is where I got surprised. Paddled with the broom stick.  One benefit was that it was really easy with no resistance. That’s about it for the pro section of the list. The boat took in water. Tried the bilge pump underneath the motor. Yes, had enough battery juice for that. Noticed the boat responding by moving more of the stream than by the broom.

It was two o’clock, sun shining from a clear sky. Should I take bite down on the line and swim 3 miles with a 1700 lbs boat in tow? Was there even one alternative that wouldn’t lead to a heart attack? What do you do in a deserted lake on a boat at 2 PM when the sun is shining?
-Tan, of course.
Took the T-shirt off and fell asleep on foredeck. Awoke an hour later by the sound of land. A reef in the lake had caught the boat. Sat up, poked around the rocks with my foot and slowly pushed the boat past it, ran the bilge pump some more with sights set on home. In a few hours I would drift ashore, I was sure of it. Took another nap.

After a while I heard a boat. It was coming closer. Peeked up with the hair stuck to my forehead.
– Well, hey, we have been following you during the afternoon from the porch, they said.
They were a young couple with a new boat, new engine, new life jackets, new whistles and new shorts.

Working in fast movements they looked like they had fallen out of the mid-section of Boat News. I squinted still half asleep and was just about to say something ravishingly intelligent when they interrupted.

– At first we thought it was an airplane, then we saw you hustling to the front of a 300  feet rooster tail, then silence and then an hour and a half pass by and you drift into that reef over there, then pass it and then another hour and now this… Are you in any form of ….distress?

I was on my back. Recognized it all. About a year or so I was hauled to shore by the Florida Coast Guard. There’s a chronicle about that. The previous year I invited Åke for a ride in another boat in this lake. It died 1000 feet out. We had two lunch boxes of sandwiches and coffee with us. We had to chunk down the sandwiches and paddle home with the lunch boxes. Åke had an appointment he couldn’t be late for and paddled like crazy. Face-red he staggered to shore with hiked up jeans and ran towards the car without a thank you. Even though he got the liver pate.

They looked at me, waiting on a response. I would confidently lean back on my elbow and fire off an cool, urbane sentence but the stomach had floated out like a liver pate over the foredeck and relieved itself with the same plop as when you pull out a rubber dart of the a dart board.

 

Everyone tried to look serious.
– Nah, I… The motor.. The battery… boom.
– It’s you who is Krantz Challenge, right?

The guy inquisitively waited for the reply.
-Yes.

 

They towed me across the lake to my pickup that stood with the boat trailer in the water. They wanted to take a picture and I straightened my hair in blind for the twentieth time. Don’t think the picture turned out very pretty.  White legs, red pate and horizontal hair coming from west.

Back in the pickup Myran called.
– Where have you been all day?
– I took the boat for a test drive, I said.
– But I told you to wait until the boys could help you, in case things go bad again …
– I don’t need any help, I answered.