The "Naked Lady" Story

It was an ordinary day! The sun was going to be hot. The waves on the Chesapeake Bay were a foot or less. My Aunt Doris' house was a beautiful vacation home. Lance and I were preparing my cousin's boat for a trip to the marina for fuel. My cousin Robert told us we could use his boat while on vacation, but be aware that the fuel gauge always was on empty. Not knowing how much gas was in the tank, we decided we would head to the marina to refuel the boat. My son, Tad, who was 3 and Lance's daughter Jennifer who was 9 were our shipmates for the short trip to the marina. We were about a 1/4 mile from the dock, and out of sight of the family when the boat started to sputter. Uh Oh! I guess the gauge was really correct when it showed empty. We were drifting with the tide! We were now in the 40 foot deep C and D canal which is the 3rd busiest canal in the world. No need for PANIC yet. We found an oar and I steered while Lance paddled. This is a BIG boat and we were going nowhere. The kids started to recognize that we were worried and began to cry. Lance thought that if he jumped in the water and held onto the motor (we are not sailors and didn't know what you called the back of the boat, and still don't) he could kick and we might go faster. Yeah right! We did show signs of moving slowly toward the shore so we continued with the steering and the kicking and the crying. Close to shore Tad said, "Dad, I have to pooh!" We were close enough that Lance could not touch the bottom so I jumped in to help push the boat to the shore. After Tad added a few more nutrients to the water we decided we needed to climb the cliffs and find gas. I volunteered to climb the steep path to the house we could see at the top. As I approached the house I saw a garage with gas cans sitting inside the door. I went to the house and knocked on the door. A young woman came to the door. She looked much like any other woman except she was NAKED! WOW! "Can I have some gas?" just didn't seem to be the appropriate question, but that's what I said. Can you believe it? She told me to help myself. I went and got the gas and headed back down the path. After putting the gallon of gas in the boat, we primed, and primed and finally got the boat started. The crying stopped! But the steering linkage broke and now we could only go around in circles. We did discover that if we ran the boat backwards and I sat on the front with the oar as a rudder it would stay straight so we worked our way back into the shipping lane and headed back to the dock VERY SLOWLY! The sun had traveled many degrees in the sky by now and our skin was showing the redness that occurs when the skin starts to blister. As we rounded the final turn there was the family standing on the dock looking very concerned for our safety. I'm sure a boat traveling backward with someone using and oar to steer it was quite a sight to the variety of ships and boats that passed us. We tied the boat to the dock, put the cover back on it and vowed never to get in a boat again. Just an extraordinary day shared by an ordinary guy and his family! LDub