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Cat TalesJuly 2003 |
Diane Benyus, Ray VanHorn, Scimitar
As you will recall,
the weather was not cooperating for sailors or anyone else at the beginning of
this season. The day of our event was a nasty, cloudy, rainy affair that scared
off all but the most intrepid of sailors. Even the raft up captains wimped out
and came by land. (Rich was out of town but Ray had graciously stepped in to
share the hosting duties with me. Lynn sent along some delicious chowder to
warm us up). We arrived by car at the park pavilion but no one was to be found.
The speaker - Dave Astor from West Marine bravely made a showing, but without
an audience we quickly gave him his freedom from the soggy scene and promised
to reschedule on a brighter day.
Then suddenly we heard via cell phone
from Al and Vickie Lohman who actually had arrived by boat! We ran down to the
dock to greet them - only to discover a slight problem - they had anchored only
a few hundred yards from the kayak dock but they did not have their dinghy with
them. (Note: recall that the aforementioned "raft captains" had arrived by car
and thus did not provided a means to ferry members ashore.) Ray took on the
mantle and snapped into action. He beseeched the young lady manning the rental
counter to loan him a vessel to retrieve our clubmates. He spied a canoe and
hopped in to the rescue - paddling valiantly out to Laid Back.
I
ran back to the pavilion to man the site in case any other folks arrived. Soon
I received a call on my cell phone and it was Vickie with the equivalent of
"Houston, we have a problem". Seems that just as Ray arrived at the transom of
Laid Back things got out of hand, and the next thing everyone knew - Ray
was in the drink!
Al and Vickie kept calm and handled the situation like
pros. They quickly pulled Ray out of the chilly waters and got him into dry
clothes. He was quite a fashion statement in foul weather gear, some pajamas of
Al's and white socks. Vickie got on the phone and called up reinforcements -
she asked their son to drive to the park and bring not only clothes and shoes,
but also their dinghy, which was deflated in their garage.
Meanwhile,
the girl at the kayak rental heard the commotion and saw that the canoe was now
sinking. She hopped in a powerboat and came to rescue the rescuer and the boat.
Vickie and AL never lost sight of the sailor's motto that "The Party Must Go
On!" After several trips back and forth to the dock transporting a killer chili
and out of this world dessert, the ragged party finally limped up to the
pavilion. Eventually we were joined by other members who came high and dry in
their cars - Joan and Wayne Savage, Ed and Connie Dooley and Harvey and Susan
Silver. Everyone brought excellent food and refreshments and in the end I
believe a good time was had by all.
(P.S. thanks to Vickie and Al's son
for being such a trooper).
Rich and Clair Miller, Exploring the Blue
May turned into
the rainy season on the Chesapeake Bay. While we swore we saw another guy and
his wife herding animals two-by-two onto their big wooden boat, Claire and I
slid away from the slip with our two wide-eyed cats in hopes that we would meet
other CCYC'ers on the Corsica River for our Memorial Day raftup. It is a fairly
simple journey between Rock Hall and the Corsica, and we planned to arrive
around 3:00 PM to set the anchor and welcome anyone else just as crazy as we
were. As it turns out, everyone else had a lot more sense than we did, and we
spent the night alone just inside the mouth of the river.
But boy did we
have food! We managed to eat our way through most of the appetizers and the pot
luck dinner food before the crickets started chirping, and we watched the fog
settle in over a couple of rum and cokes. With one cat hunkered down in the
v-berth and the other watching sleepily from the settee in the main saloon, the
evening was not entirely unenjoyable.
We awoke on Sunday morning with
the best of intentions to pull up the anchor and set out for Day Two off Purdy
Point above Gibson Island. The fog was not cooperating - we could almost see
the bow of the boat from the stern. After attempting to wait out the mist for
several hours, we put new batteries in the GPS and made our way out of the
Corsica and down the Chester. After an hour or so under power, it became
apparent that the raft up was not to be, and our better judgment told us to
return to the safe confines of our slip in Rock Hall. Gibson Island would have
to wait until another day.
Funny, we never did see the guy with the
animals again….