Sunday, September 6, 2009

Need a Lift?

A few weeks ago we, again, drove down to Lake Eufala in southeast Alabama to stay at Brad and Lindsey's lake house. The house was owned by Brad's father before his death. We have had a few opportunities to stay with them this summer and do not pass up the opportunity, if at all possible. We had no idea, on the 3 hour drive to Eufala, that this weekend would be so memorable.

We arrived late Friday night and spent a few hours catching up with our hosts. We then hit the bed in anticipation of a busy day of water skiing, knee boarding, wake boarding, and riding around on Saturday. Saturday morning was beautiful and after waking up and putting the boat in the water, we were off.






Cayce, our resident athlete, hops up on her skis on the first attempt and even has been making great progress on slalom skiing.

After a few attempts by me to ski, we decided to head in for lunch and recharge. After lunch and a short nap by Preston, we were back on the water. Lindsey decided to go first and was tearing it up on one ski. Then she switched to the knee board and attempted a few unsuccessful 360s. She started to get tired and I decided I was going to give it a try. I got in the water and was ready to go, but when Brad tried to crank the boat, it was dead. We were adrift. After many attempts we were trying to put our heads together about what to do and trying to stay away from the rocks on the shore. We eventually drifted into a small cove and called the sea tow boat.

One small problem entered our minds as we sat and waited on our rescuer. Dark clouds were moving toward us...fast. I checked the radar on my phone and realized that we were sitting in the path of a pretty fierce looking storm. So, being the P90Xer that I am, I jumped out of the boat with the ski rope and swam toward a dock, pulling the boat as I went. When I reached the dock, I was able to jump up on it and pull the boat the rest of the way over and get it tied down. Amazingly, on the dock, we found a battery charger. Brad hooked it up to the boat, but after letting it charge, the boat didn't turn over. At this same time, the sky opened up. It started raining so hard. The lake house that owned the dock we were on was vacant, at the time, and Cayce, Lindsey and Preston were able to wait on the screened in porch.

As they were dry and warm, the sea tow pulled up and hooked up to Brad's boat. They towed us back to the boat ramp. It continued to pour down on us the whole time and Brad and I had a good laugh. We caught a ride back to the lake house and picked up the truck and trailer. After retrieving Cayce, Lindsey and Preston from the camp we returned to the boat and were able to get it on the trailer.

We were so thankful that we were not out in the middle of the lake when we went adrift. It would have been a whole different experience with an infant who probably would have been crying. We are also so thankful that no one was at the vacant lake house because I don't know how someone would have reacted, given the events that were going on.


On Sunday, everything was back to normal. Before we left the lake the sun came out and we were able to dry out the boat. As always, when we spend time with Brad and Lindsey we come away with a story to tell.

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