An Unforgettable Evening

Since it's time to head home and I haven't blogged about this, I guess I better because if it doesn't make the blog, it never happened - HA!  No pictures - just a story!!

A little over 2 weeks ago this happened - and I hope it never happens again!!  None of the fishing guys actually knew if they could fish or not since the beach was closed - one police would say you could - the next one would say absolutely not!  So who knew if you were supposed to be out on a boat or not!!  Glenn went out very early a couple of days and snuck back in when the police weren't here - but he decided he would go night fishing so he wouldn't have to worry about the police seeing him!

So let me set the stage - it's DARK outside - the moon was out but it was cloudy - there's some light coming from the beachfront houses but not much.  Glenn was to take the boat down to the water with the ATV and then I was to come down and drive it back up!  I noticed when I walked by the hot tub that his oar was on it so as soon as I got down there, I asked him if he needed it and of course he said yes!

Glenn hadn't figured in that high tide was almost upon the beach - and the waves were crashing pretty good!  And when the waves have crashed for a while, the sand gets a ledge on it!  So when I got down there he had the boat sitting at an angle.  He got off the ATV (without putting it in park) and unhooked it from the boat - I turned around to run back to the house to get the oar and heard a crash!  I turned around and saw that the atv had surged forward and knocked the boat up on its side!!!  And everything in the boat that was loose was now in the ocean with the crashing waves!!

OMG - we both started picking up stuff and throwing it on the sand - and mind you, it's DARK!!!  We finally got it all out of the ocean and tried to right the boat as the waves are filling it with water - but of course the ATV is in the way so Glenn yells at me to get on the ATV and back it up while he's trying to hold onto the boat so it doesn't go out with the waves!  It's dark - I have NO IDEA where the different gears are as I don't drive it!!  I finally got it in reverse but it was stuck in the sand!

So Glenn gets on and finally gets the atv backed up enough so we can try to right the boat - it's heavy, it's full of water and I'm not strong at all!!  Glenn says we'll have to hook it up to the atv to try to right it so I get back on as it needs to come forward now - what a mess!!  We FINALLY get it hooked up to the boat and get it turned back over, only to have a crashing wave turn it right back up on its side!!

Glenn's yelling at me as quietly as he can as to NOT attract the police and the waves are crashing so we can't hear each other anyway!!  And everyone knows what it's like when a husband/wife team try to do something together - yup - chaos!!!

We do get the boat turned up - it's so full of water though that the atv can't pull it so I start bailing the water out - when we get enough out so that the atv will pull it, Glenn says to put all the stuff back in the boat.  So we put everything back in and he gets on the ATV to pull it our of the water and the dang thing goes up on its side again because it's at such an angle in the water!!  OH MY GOSH!! Everything once again comes out in the ocean!!  So then we have to get back in the water and throw it all up on the beach AGAIN!!!!!

By this time I am exhausted - I had kept asking Glenn if I could run back up to the house and get the neighbor behind us to help!!    After he got the atv stuck AGAIN he said go ahead and go  -  I ran up but he wasn't home.......I did think to grab the shovel though since the ATV was stuck.  After digging the tire out, then the atv wouldn't start!!  OH my gosh, can anything else go wrong!!

WE FINALLY get the atv started and the boat at least OUT of the water up on the sand - but we're still at such a bad angle that the darn boat goes on its side 3 more times before we got it up on the level sand!!  Keep in mind there are 2 baja wheels on the back which makes it extra heavy!  And awkward!!  At one time, the police came on the beach road so we shut the atv off and luckily they didn't see us!

I was never so glad to see that atv and boat up on the level sand!  

What a nightmare - I was shaking so hard I could hardly walk - and we're both wet and covered in sand!!  I had peeked at the clock for some reason when I originally went down and by the time we got back up home, we had messed with that boat and atv for an entire hour!!!

Glenn went back down on the beach after he put the boat in the yard but luckily we had gotten everything picked up and he basically only lost a few lures!

The whole ordeal was something else - it's a miracle we didn't lose the boat to the ocean because it's hard to imagine how difficult it was to hold that dang boat with those crashing waves until we could get it out of the ocean!

It was a night I NEVER want to ever happen again!  And that's my story!