In the navy, we start out every too hard to believe story with a phrase that ensures the people that listen, without a doubt, it is true.... and since this is one.... This is a no #^&#^&#^&#^&ter....
The wife wanted to go catch a flounder, so we headed out to the Isles of Shoal. Got there and caught a few mack's. Put them in the livewell, but since one was bloodied up a bit, we ran the pump to let the water exchange. Then the bait rod doubled over... 25 minutes later, we had a three foot shark.
As we got him off the hook, another mack hit the other rod still in... threw him in the livewell, too
Which was still running. No biggie. Went to start the engine... nothing. Barely turned over. Both batteries shot. Called a friend on my cell phone, he grabbed a guy, they went to my garage, grabbed a spare battery I still have, and headed out in his new 2004 center console. With a 250Hp Yamaha on the back, would not be long. Any minute now... as soon as they find the battery that someone decided needed to be moved from where I told them it would be... man it is getting dark fast...
As the light faded and darkness settled in, we finally heard from them. They found us by the spot light we flashed and kept on, they headed our direction. Then turned around, and kept doing circles.
His throttle jammed, at 25 knots. Could not get it disengaged. On the second attempt (30 minutes later) of shutting down the engine and drifting by, we exchanged ropes and tied off. They gave me the battery, I changed out one battery with the good one by the light of my wife's cell phone... the spot light had died, no more 2 million candle power. The first battery I pulled from the boat had a broken lug, so no idea how long I had been on only one battery. And of course the broken lug was on the deep cycle, which had nothing left.
After changing it out, the boat started right up... life is good.
After following my friend in... who had to do 25 knots in the river back to the slips... I noticed it was hard to keep the boat on course, but figured it was the current. As we made a final turn to line up with the slip, I found out why it was hard to keep on course... the hydraulics for the engine quit. With the motor hard over, we had drifted into the slip sideways, no chance of straightening out.
My wife jumped out as I took way off the boat, she managed to keep us from hitting anything as I jumped out and got a rope on a cleat and brought the boat to a stand still. And so ended our night of flounder fishing...
3 Sharks, 3 mackeral, 5 or so missed flounder, two dead batteries, and a new boat stuck in gear, and one wife who remained calm, cool, and collected the whole time (the wife, priceless). I am going to beat the first flounder we catch flatter than he is when I get him into the boat.
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