This past Mother’s Day, a number of deBoaters from Herrington Harbour South on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland decided that we were not going to let the forecast for rainy weather keep us from enjoying our boats. So, we decided to pack up and head on down to our marina with the intention of spending the weekend dockside, no matter what. Friday night was rainy but by Saturday afternoon, the weather had cleared enough for us to join another deBoater family on the South River who was celebrating two graduations. Sunday found us back with gray skies but that didn’t stop the captain of Chillaxin from going forward with his plans to barbecue salmon and steaks for us all. As the rain began to fall more heavily, said captain just popped open his umbrella and finished cooking. We had a great dinner on Chillaxin. Since the captains enjoyed what the first mates thought were way too many martinis to drive home, we all decided to stay. It was an ill-fated decision. The wind that accompanied the rain storm was so strong that the boats were rocking and rolling and banging against the docks. On our boat, we sleep in a berth in the bow. That meant no sleep for us that night. The water beating against the bow made it impossible to sleep. We experienced windspeeds in excess of 40 mph all night. I actually believe that this was like a mini-hurricane experience. We lost power during the night so the heat left us. Fortunately, we were still able to use the head. We packed up to leave about 6:30 in the morning, intending to head home to shower and go to work. That didn’t happen. When we proceeded to leave the parking lot, the thud,thud, thud of the tire told us we had a flat. It continues to go downhill from here. We couldn’t get the locking lug nuts off. The first AAA dispatcher couldn’t reach us because the roads were flooded. The second AAA dispatcher came in a van, not a tow truck, and didn’t have the special wrench needed to unlock the lug nuts. He finally returned around 10 am with his tow truck and towed us to a tire place in our neighborhood. A store owner drove us to our home. He had already dropped us off and left when we discovered that we couldn’t get into our house using the electronic garage door opener outside the garage and all the screen doors to our house were locked! My husband had to break into our house for us to get in. It was my idea to celebrate Mother’s day on the boat. Our children thought we were out of our minds. Perhaps. I am glad we had a blast at dinner on Sunday night and I guess that made it all worth it. We’ve been in rainstorms dockside on the boat before but I think this was the worst I’ve ever experienced.
Weathering the storm… |
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