A Three Hour Tour

Yesterday we had the worst boat experience! Anthony finally got the insurance check from the person who rear ended him a few weeks ago and got his bumper fixed. He was itching to take the boat out, at least for a drive. The weather was overcast and I was feeling kind of tired and blah but Anthony really wanted to go so I said yes. We got out on the water and everything seemed fine. Anthony wanted to see how fast the boat could go, so he gunned the engine. I hate it when he goes fast, so I looked at the ground, held onto James and waited for it to be over. After about 30 seconds, James' hat flew off and he started crying, so I yelled at Anthony to slow down. All of a sudden the engine cut out and we lurched to a stop. That is when it all started to go bad.

Anthony fiddled with the engine for awhile, and just couldn't get it started. He tried all sorts of different things and I even looked up the manual for the engine on my phone to see if there were any instructions in there for what was happening. James was being pretty difficult, wanting to check out everything Anthony was doing, try to put his feet over the edge of the boat, and press all the buttons. After at least 45 minutes of Anthony trying to get the engine started with no success, we were both really frustrated. Anthony looked at me, exasperated, and said, "I don't know what to do. We don't even have a way to get home". That's when I almost lost it. I distinctly remember the last time we were on the boat I told him that he needed to get some paddles on the boat just in case... Right then James decided to press a button he wasn't supposed to for the 10th time, and Anthony snapped at him really loudly to "Stop!". Now you have to understand, Anthony doesn't ever get frustrated enough to talk like that, especially not to James. If it were me, James would have just ignored it because I've definitely snapped at him before but this was Daddy! The poor thing, his feelings were hurt and he started crying and crying. He let me hold him, which he doesn't normally do, and Anthony felt bad and apologized to him.

After some discussion, we decided to try to get the boat as close to the boat ramp as possible and try to figure something out from there.Where we were was pretty shallow, only a few feet of water, but to get to the boat ramp we would need to cross the channel which is really deep and we had no idea how we were going to do that. Anthony got the pole out and started trying to pole us closer to the boat ramp, but the wind was pushing us back and we kept getting stuck on the sandbar. So he decided it would be easier to just get out and walk and pull the boat behind him. The entire time we can see the boat ramp in the distance but it never seemed to get any closer. James broke the line in his fishing pole which caused a lot of crying and hysterics, so I was trying to fix it when all of a sudden I hear a splash. Apparently James leaned over the side of the boat too far and fell in! (We had been telling him nonstop the entire time to keep his feet in the boat and not to lean too far). Luckily we were only in a few feet of water and of course he was wearing his life jacket. Anthony was already in the water, so he just rushed over to him and picked him up and put him back in the boat. He was okay, but totally drenched and definitely traumatized! He couldn't stop crying, he was hysterical!! He didn't know what he wanted, if I picked him up he arched his back and wanted to be put down, but if I put him down he clung to me like he wanted me to pick him up. He finally ended up half on, half off my seat with his head on my stomach, sobbing.

At this point, Anthony is still walking the boat and he got out his cell phone and started calling around to people we know who have boats who might be able to come to the boat ramp and tow us across the channel. James hasn't calmed down one bit and I started to tear up too. It was all just so horrible! After what had to have been 20 minutes of crying, Anthony heard a motorcycle go by and said to James, "Did you hear the motorcycle?" James stopped crying, looked up like everything was normal and went "Yeah!!". After that he was fine! I kept hugging him and snuggling him and telling him that I loved him. He kept saying things about the "wadder" and "fall" and "cool", so I'm still not sure if he remembers it as a bad thing... When we got close enough to the boat ramp to cross the channel, it was about 6:30pm (we got into the boat around 4:30). Thankfully (definitely an answer to prayer on this one), someone was putting their boat in the water as we got close. We waved and waved and they came over to see what was wrong and agreed to tow us. They were so nice! Once we got the boat tethered to the dock I could not get off that thing fast enough!!! I was tempted to kiss the ground! What I really did was visit the bathroom :) A pregnant lady cannot be without a bathroom for that long!!

So we came through relatively unscathed. Anthony isn't totally sure what happened with the boat, but this was his first time using the boat's built in gas tank instead of a separate small tank, so he thinks it has something to do with the fuel line. All I know is that I won't be getting on that thing again until he gets it fixed, takes it out a few times to make sure it is fixed, and invests in some paddles!