Rescue on the Ouachita -- Part II
Part II
Now with the three trolling marine batteries, I thought we were safe. After all, I did have a new set of heavy-duty jumper cables. Alls I had to do was hook ‘em up to the dead battery and all would be well, right? Not exactly.
I isloated one of the marine batteries, hooked up the cables with light fading fast and turned the ignition. Just a grunt and nothin’ else. This was NOT cool. Actually the night air was almost upon us, like the ever-present chill of a February wind. No matter. I had the situation under control. I grabbed the emergency rope from the front storage locker and headed back to the rear. I popped the Yahama 90 engine cover off, and then the flywheel guard came off with the last bit of natural light we had. With Gigi holding the flashlight, I wound the rope carefully around the flywheel, with the motor in neutral, with “T” handle in my hand, I gave it a mighty yank. The damned thang nearly threw my shoulder out of socket. I looked for a decompression valve but there was none to be found in the night. I tried it a couple more times and quickly abandoned the idea of a mechanical start. There had to be another way.
The sun’s final pink-crimson glow had abandoned us and star-struck canopy now over us, we were far from the nearest source of civilization. Ouachita has wild, undeveloped shores—it was designed that way by the Corps of Engineers--and most of the time it is a real blessing. But right at the time, well, I wished I was on one of those commercial lakes with condos every fifteen feet down the bank.
With the little juice I had left—the MinKota 101 on 100% thrust--I headed the boat out of the North cove, toward Striper Point, as far as I could go. The closer I got to Striper Point, the more the South wind worked against us and finally, we stood still, making no headway in the dark, so, with little power, I turned Fancy into the westerly bank in a sheltered cove and beached, tying her off securely to some buck brush. Ahhhh. No wind—what a relief.
My little city wife was well frazzled by now and not too amused with the whole thing. Long ago she had called Ashea and told her we would make the movie another time. Geesh! So now, we turned our efforts to the rescue. We had done all WE could do and there was not another swingin’ soul on the lake. So who do you call? It was a simple question with but one answer.
I picked up my cell--the only thing on the bless-ed boat with good batteries-- and dialed Lil-brother Tom. “Hallo.” “Whadayadoin’?” “Oh, jus’ sittin’ around watchin’ a little tv. WhadaYAdoin?” “I’m out here on Ouachita”—“STILL????? You dumazzz!” (He didn’t know half the story but he was about to). I told him the sad tale about the coffee pot that THEY gave us making MY battery go dead etc. etc etc and he said, “Whadaya want me to do?” “Come and GET me!!!!”
I hear this laughin’ in the background and then I sense he is once again puttin’ the phone to his ear, “You hungry?” “No, I got candy bars, cokes, chicken and a 15” bass and a grill on board if I get hungry”. “Okay, let me get my burger and I’ll head to your house (that’s where HIS boat is) and I’ll be out there in an hour or so.” “Okay, brother, we’ll damn-sure be here, that’s fer sur.” With that, he hung up and I turned my attention to other things…like my wide-eyed little wife.
We called Ashlea and gave her an update and then made another to sister Linda. With no one else left to call, we put the phone away and my thoughts soon drifted back to the matters at hand.
Now, folks, a man needs to make his wife as comfortable as possible at ALL times right? But esPECicially on the boat…when the wind is whippin’ and the temperature is dipping, a guy’s just gotta make her comfortable—especially at a time like that. She IS my fishin’ buddy and I DO want her to enjoy herself. She doesn’t need to imagine the lions, tigers and bears in the deep dark woods so I figured I must keep her busy. Hmmmm.
I got the Little Buddy heater out and put a propane tank in and proceeded to light it up. No go. It was contankerous in the windy conditions and I soon tired of its finikiness and all but made a trotline weight of it. “What will we do now, honey,” Gigi asked. I have another plan. I pulled out my Swiss-made denatured ancohol heater that I happened to leave on board from a turkey hunt that never happened, a few weeks ago. I was glad to see it. It’s the size of a metal minow bucket. I loaded the resevoir with a quart of denatured alcohol and lit it in fine fashion. It gave a welcome warmth and a flickering, comforting glow as I put it all back together and turned it to the maximum (5000 btu) setting. Gigi was warm now…and I was happy (er).
We had eaten our ham sandwiches many hours ago and Gigi had found some snacks in one of the storage bins on the boat and I could tell she was thinking about dinner. “You got any of that KFC handy,” she asked? To both our delights, she had jogged my memory and I produced two huge fried chicken breasts that had been cooked by the Colonel two days ago and we chowed down. Okay; we were warm and now we were full. What’s next.
I had to keep her mind busy so I tapped into some of my leftover knowledge from an astronomy class I had nearly three decades ago. Within thirty minutes of scanning the stunning beauty of the starlit heavens, she knew how to find the Big Dipper, the North Star, the Little Dipper Orion, Venus, Mars (or Jupiter I dunno which) and things were going well. The heater was ablazin’ and the wind was shielded from us. We just made the best of the situation. I loved on her and we took a couple of photos. “I look awful,” she said. “You look beautiful!” She just grinned and put her head on my shoulder. These are good times donchaknow.
Folks, this is my element as you know (those of you that know me). But for everything the great outdoors IS to me it is NOT to Gigi. She tolerates it because she loves me. But she is a real trooper and did quite well the whole night. But, to further distract, we got out her new camera and took plenty more photos of this epic adventure.
Stay tuned.
