Since my little one is still sitting on dry dock and weather is not letting me start any projects to be done on her
; I went to fishing Saturday... With a friend of mine, well known for his little knowledge on marine stuff... I figured he must have learned enough since last season's funniest boating experiences...
I'll start with the last season's experiences this guy had:
Getting a boating license in a day+ having enough money to buy a 20 footer runner boat + a 115 HP outboard: Dropping guests over board by accelarating rapidly...
Asking for the break of the boat when approaching the marina too fast...
Hitting the dock 4 times with total damages of 3000$...
Catching some 20+ bluefishes then purchasing a deep freeze the same evening... Carrying 12 fishing poles aboard...
Alright hoping that you've got the picture; last saturday was an interesting boating experience...
We left around 9AM, by the time we picked up the lunch and drinks and some additional fishing stuff it was around 11AM... I told him to kill some time at the nearby restaurant since it was going to be pretty hot at high noon... He said that we'd be ok because he had some sunscreen spray... Well, "captain" says we go, then we'll go...
As I aproached the boat I noticed the upgrades; plastic all over fenders on the dockside, 4 fenders on port side and 1 on dockside-1 on bow hanging fenders... Oh, and he got the end slip which is a L shape... I thought that he learned his lessons on dockside
As he uncovered the boat I figured that it won't be a fun day laying down on the front seats and fishing... There were about 15 fishing poles lying in the middle... 2 huge coolers were taking up whatever space he had on the aft...
As he started to loading up the boat with the 4 other poles we brought in!!!
I began to wonder around the boat... Some unknown to me knot style tied docking lines, fender lines, and weirdly attached anchor cleat in the anchor locker were the first signs of none-whatsoever-knowledge about the marine knots...
Once he loaded up the most unnecessary stuff aboard, he sat down to start the engine... I asked him if he were to run a pre-departure check list, he said no, he "knew" everything was alright...
I've been in many boats as a guest and realized this; all sailboaters showed me where was the PFDs, flares, fire extinguishers and E-kit, operating the VHF, how to start and kill the engine, then the sheets and lines etc... Powerboaters, on the other hand, those I've been with, usually showed me where was the toilet and how to flush it then the location of beers...
Back to the story, we departed from the dock without an incident, with my eyes still looking back to the dock and asking myself; change of mind, anytime now!
Oh well, once I asked him the locations of the emergency stuff, he only had enough PFDs for three of us stoved well behind the fishing stuff...
The fire extinguisher, he couldn't remember the location... Flares we had to return to the dock to get them from the car!
No e-kit aboard he claimed that it wasn't requested by the CG, VHF radio was his handheld... The irony is he does have a mounted VHF sitting right next to him... He said it wasn't working... A quick look around the VHF while he was fueling, explained why! The fuse was blown!!!
So we were to rely on a 5W handheld just because of a 50 cent fuse? Brilliant!!!
As we jumped over the waves running around 25mph, he started asking how fast my boat was. Great, someone neglected to read the chapman's book
The fishing went as expected, nothing... His sunscreen spray was useless against the sun. Still feeling the burns as I type this...
On the late afternoon, as we started to trolling a weird hook behind us, I realized that there are many many many like this guy. Powering around me as I struggle to sail... He is a good guy and everything yet, his attitude towards the sea made me picture him as a live bait swimming on the end of my line since I couldn't find the throwable pfd either...
His last act for the day was approaching a sail race group thinking that there might be fish! As the referee blew the cannon, he asked me what was bunch sailboats were doing overthere?
At that point, I couldn't stop myself from asking him to hand me the wheel... A quick turn around visit to the harbor then back to the canal... We motored down on the canal, as I stared at a gorgeous 40+ feet sailboat docked in grace...
I told him to approach really slowly the dock since I didn't want to deal with his docking. Jumped with the bow line and tied it up . He tied up the spring line with another unknown method and I just thanked God that I was back to the land...
He asked me to go fishing again, I told him that only if he lets me give him some knowledge about seamanship...
As I learn to respect the sea, I learned how to become a seaman... I'm not a proffesional, yet I know that knowledge is important...
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