We started the motor and lifted the anchor. Well… we tried to lift the anchor but we were
encountering problems. As the current
was running quickly, Michael had to be at the helm to steer so Grace and I were
on anchor duty. After much effort and
slow progress we got our chain up far enough to see a push bike and crab pot
tangled around our chain. Andrew from
the boat yard came over in his tender and about 30 minutes later we’d offloaded
our unwanted cargo. Grace and I lifted
the anchor and Michael steered us down river following Ryan.
Even the dog was impressed with our find
Our motor was heating up really quickly and Michael
told me to check the header tank (the bottle that holds the coolant). I opened up the floor and the header tank was
nowhere to be seen. It had fallen out of
its holder (who’d have thought cable ties wouldn’t be sufficient to hold your
motor together?) I retrieved the bottle
from under the motor and held it while Michael continued down river. After a while… “Michael, it’s bubbling. It’s
boiling. She’s gonna blow!!!” which
wasn’t an attractive prospect considering I was holding the bloody thing. Michael screamed at me to turn the motor
off. With a boiling header tank in one
hand and no floor under me I had to climb on beds to try to cut the motor. Finally I made it and got the motor off. It was at this point we started to have REAL
problems. With no motor there is very
limited steering and the current was pushing us straight into the
riverbank. Unfortunately there was
nothing we could do to avoid becoming stuck.
Ryan was now out of sight so I called him, told him we were stuck and he
came back to pull us out of our muddy prison.
Unfortunately our resting place was too shallow for
Ryan to reach us, so Michael and I tied a line to our bow and Michael & I
(after much debate as to whether it would be me or Jed) jumped in the dingy to
take the line out to Ryan’s boat to tie on so he could pull us out. Once we started moving (keeping the line taut
so it didn’t get caught on props or debris), Kidnapped came right along with
us. Two unattended kids and limited steerage
made me question my decision to leave Jed on board. We were heading for the side of Ryan with
Kidnapped’s bow right behind us. They
were going to collide. Michael and I
were in our little rubber ducky between the two and there was no doubt we would
be crushed between the two. The bow of
Kidnapped finally reached Ryan’s boat but Ryan’s dad was there to grab hold to
stop further progress. This left Michael
and I stuck in the small angle between the two boats. After some cajoling we
freed ourselves and headed to the back of Ryan’s boat to tie off whilst Ryan’s
dad held our bow at bay.
Michael got out of the dinghy and onto Ryan’s duck
board. Ryan has two 340hp motors and the
wash was just too strong and flipped me straight out of the dinghy into the
fast flowing flood current (my decision to leave Jed on board was now well
justified).
I grabbed hold of Ryan’s dinghy (tied to the back
of his boat) and realised my dinghy was fucking off down river. Michael yelled at me for 3 days when I lost a
winch handle… can you imagine if I lost a whole bloody dinghy??? I reached out with my feet and managed to
slip it through the rope handle and pull it back a little closer. I’m now looking like a walkway between the
two dinghies.
Grace was on Kidnapped, screaming and crying. I’ve, by this stage, got my feet into the
dinghy and trying to drag it closer to me against the current. I’ve looked at Grace and called out “Don’t worry honey, I’ll be fine”. I felt anything but fine and then I
remember the crocs in the river and tried to suck my stomach in so it wasn’t in
the water… no luck there!
A huge surge of effort and I managed to drag our
dinghy close enough so I could actually get into it. I sat on the floor of our dinghy, holding on
to Ryan’s dinghy until Michael was finished tying us off. I then had to drive the dinghy up closer to
Ryan’s boat for Michael to get back in and return us to Kidnapped. I sustained a little muscle damage but that’s
better than the alternatives.
Ryan towed us down river and we anchored at Devil’s
Elbow. The current isn’t so fast here
and the debris seems to be skirting around us.
We fixed the air leak causing us to overheat and
all now seems to be in working order.
I’m trying to determine whether we are blessed… or
cursed!?!
