Stranded

Imagine this. You're having a great day on the lake. Kneeboarding, soaking up some sun, taking photos. Comments are made about how much fun you're having, how the boat gets great gas mileage since the gauge shows you've only used a quarter-tank even though you've been driving the boat off and on all day. You see clouds coming from off in the distance and the wind picks up. You feel it start to sprinkle. You decide you need to head back home. And then it happens. 

You can't start the boat. You try, and it dies. You try and it dies. This goes on for a few times before we realize the boat won't start. We figure we must be out of gas. At least we hope that's all it is). So we brainstorm. Anyone have a cell phone? Nope. We have 2 oars. Let's try rowing. No go. The oars do nothing to move the boat. We have life vests. Maybe we could take turns swimming and pulling the boat behind us to get it home. Not being sure of our fate, we decide to record a video diary so when they find us, there's a record of what went down. 

Because of the pretty much hurricane-force winds (ok maybe not that strong), the audio is somewhat unintelligible. Below is what I tried to translate the best I can. 

Kert: Look at this oar. We are now stuck out in the middle of Amon Carter Lake. It's bent and we've gotta get home with this. We might be out of gas. It is May something. We have one (Matt: 2009)...two things of water, suntan lotion and no food. This is not good. 

The seconds tick by. Then the minutes. We must've been out there for 10 whole minutes. You can imagine the suspense. Then we saw him. One lone jet skier destined to be our ticket out of our stranded state. The oars (particularly the bent one) come in handy. 

Here's our new plan. A designated representative will go with the jet skier to get another jet ski from our neighbor and come back to tow the boat and the other 3 home. 

Only, the jet skier doesn't see us. He drives right by. The term gypsy or something of the sort is thrown out. But then, he circles back around. We have another chance. The waving continues and he heads our way. Our designated representative takes off on his mission.

Meanwhile, we sit in the boat. We discuss what else could be wrong with the boat other than being out of gas. And we wait. The jet skier comes back by and heads where he was going before we stopped him. Our ride shouldn't be far behind. 

Where is our ride? Did he stop to explain the situation and ask for permission to use the jet ski? Did he get a sandwich? Go to a movie?  We're not sure. (Later we found out it was option #1). It was probably only 5-10 minutes or so between the time the jet skier passed by and our ride arrived but it felt like forever because we were drifting closer and closer to shore (why didn't we just tie the boat up and walk home you ask? Well because we left our shoes on the dock.). We were about to drop anchor when suddenly, we see him on the horizon. 

He's approaching the boat.

He's circling around to the side of the boat. Somehow, the jet ski gets perpendicular to the boat and it's going too fast. They're going to collide. It's inevitable. What follows is a moment you had to be there to fully appreciate. Kert gets a horrified look on his face and bails into the water. He's somehow going to try to sandwich his body between the boat and the jet ski to minimize the impact. But with milliseconds to spare, he can't make it. They bump. It's really not a huge impact and does no real damage (other than maybe a scuff mark). Ben's annoyed. Matt and I are laughing. It's awesome. 

So we get the boat hooked up to the jet ski and get on our way. Kert pulls while Ben, Matt and I are chillin in the boat talking and laughing about what just happened. We take the opportunity to take a fun photo or two.

And that's pretty much it.

In case you're wondering how this story ends, we got back home. 

A good part of the rest of the day was spent getting the boat out of the water and onto the trailer to take it into town and fill it up with gas and then get it back in the water to see if no gas was really the problem. It was. 

We didn't die. It didn't even rain. The Lord provided for us in a big way with the weather, our jet skier friend, our awesome neighbor who let us borrow the jet ski, and from keeping the jet ski/boat collision from being worse. All in all, it was a pretty great experience, not to mention a great blog post. Any time the guys want to get stranded again, count me in!