posted July 17, 2002 06:14 PM            

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Well Monday around midday was a very light air day at White Lake N.C. i can't measure breeze but the flags were moving a little and the lake was pretty flat.....i figured this would be a good time to do a little cruising around with my butt in the bottom of the cockpit and my feet on the seats......

i made it out to the middle of the lake just as the air went to a still calm.....temperature around 90 or so....after a while of just sitting there i decided it was time for a swim......i had on my PFD so over the side i went......got cooled off and messed around the sides of the boat while holding on to the bow line.....well i guessed it was time to get back in so i went to the windward side of the boat just behind the jib cleats and pulled myself up on the side...well with nothing to grab inside the boat i just hung there for a few seconds and fell back into the water....i figured that my 50+ year old out of shape 205 pound butt was too much for my arms....or it may have the weight of the 3 pork chop rice and potato and sandwich snak before departing that may have been the problem....Well, another after another attempt had the same result i figured i should try something different.....so i went to the leeward side of the boat and figured that side shouldn't be as hard since the boom was hanging over and was causing the boat to list to that side.....Bad choice....CAPSIZE!!!!!.....well now i've got another problem....whattohell i need to practice righting the boat anyway.....fortunately, i tied the centerboard in the down position so it was sticking out well below the hull......Damn that thing looks a whole lot higher than the side of the boat did when i couldn't get up on it......well by now the old ticker is really pumping and i guess the adrenilyn is pumping so it only took two trys to get my chest and abdomen across the centerboard and guess what....the boat began to right itself......well i'm now back to square one and i'm still in the water.....so i finally floated around to the transom and with what adrenylin i had left i crawled in over the transom.....so there i sat in about 4 or 5 inches of water in the cockpit but damn it felt good.....i sat there for a while waiting for my pulse to get below 150 or so....i was thinking what a revolting developement it would be to have a heart attack after all that....well at least i'd be in the boat when someone found me.....well at this point a ski boat with a bunch of kids came up and asked if they could help....i remember thinking "where the hell were you when i needed you????" i did however ask them to go get my Cleveland Browns stadium cushion that had floated off....but my new Glock hat had evidently gone to the bottom.....OK--the question for the day is this.....How many scoops of water does it take to bail out a CL14 when using a #9 Deck shoe????? Dick