The Boat…Chapter 5
I’m not sure how long I was in the boat. I’m not sure if I passed out or if I was knock out. When I opened my eyes I looked around and nothing had changed. I paid attention to my body for a moment to see if there was any other kind of hurt or pain expressing itself, but…nothing more than the regular pain and aches I already had. I decided I hadn’t died and gone to heaven because I didn’t see any doves flying around or harps being played or any other heavenly kind of sounds. I knew it wasn’t hell either, because I was a little cold from being in the cold Lake Chilhowee water. I pulled myself up and out of the boat searching for a rock that would support me. I reached back behind my head because of the headache I had developed and felt a little bump on the back of my noggin. I soon realized why everything went black for awhile. I just hoped that maybe it knocked a little sense into me.
OK! OK! The boat is still not floatable. I finally got to the back of the boat and took the rope and hunted for something I could secure the tail to and that was up high enough so it would be supportive of my lifting scheme. I could find nothing. Not a tree stump, a rock, or even a shrub strong enough to do the trick. Why didn’t I think to check this out BEFORE I went to all the trouble of turning this vessel around? There had to be something, I said to myself. All I needed to do was find someway to wrap that rope around something secure and inch the boat up out of the water enough so I could pull the drain plug and let the water out.
When I verbalized that last statement in my ranting and raving, it dawned on me that that plan was not going to work. It was not going to work because of a minor little flaw with the boat. Obviously, I knew about the problem, but I thought it was so insignificant; it would never make a difference. Well, boy was I wrong. I could take the drain plug out, but I would not be able to screw it back in. The way this drain plug work is dependant on the rubber bushing on the outside of the plug. The plug itself is about an inch in diameter and about two inches long. On the inside is a bolt with a little turn handle at one end and a metal washer on the other end. On the outside is a rubber washer that swells up when the little handle on the plug is turned…thus sealing the hole. There was a malfunction, of sorts, with my drain plug. For some reason the screw part froze up when unscrewed. It worked fine when I took a pair of pliers and held the metal washer in place and started to turn it. It would only take about a quarter of a turn to free up, but it would not free up by hand, I had to hold the washer with some pliers to get it to start. AND, my pliers were at the bottom of the lake. What this meant was this…I could unscrew the plug (if I ever got the tail of the boat out of the water) and let the water out, but I could not put the plug back in. Therefore the boat would fill with water again as soon as I launched it for the boat ramp. This changes everything!
Now I was back to my original plan of lifting the boat high enough out of the water to actually tip it to one side far enough so I could pour the water over the side of the boat. I think I’m going to be sore in the morning, I thought.
Even so, I had to find something to wrap that rope around. I started inching myself up the side of the embankment searching for something that would work. There! I spotted some kind of root, or buried limb protruding out the side of the hill. I pulled on it as hard as I could and it didn’t budge. This is just going to have to work, I said out loud.
After securing the rope to the root, I started pulling the aft of the boat onto the shore. The point of where the back of the boat rested was on a fairly large smooth rock and getting the boat up on that rock and all the way to the edge was pretty easy. But then it stopped moving. I inched down the slope a little in order to see what was blocking the boats movement.
I spotted a couple of two inch thick water logged branches from some invisible tree jutting out of the rocks. They were impeding any movement of the boat. I tried breaking the branches and was successful with one of them, but not the second. But, at the same time, I discovered that it was pretty pliable. I found the broken rope and a section that was still intact. I tied one end around a rock and wrapped the rope around the limb and started pulling. I was able to pin this stubborn chunk of wood up against the edge of the slope and tied it off. Now back to the pulling.
It still was not budging. After careful inspection I decided that the rocks just past the smooth flat sloping rock that the boat easily moved over, was now sticking up out of their perch making it almost impossible for me to actually lift the boat the three or four inches I needed to clear them.
I needed to re-arrange the rocks.
I pushed and shoved, all the time careful my toes did not get in the way, until I had fashioned almost a “runway” for the boat. The slick shards of shale actually was working for me instead of against me. If I can just get it up enough to hit the runway, I should be able to push the boat forward and up enough to tip the boat to the side, I thought. But how to get the front of the boat up and onto this runway was a task I was not sure how to accomplish.
I made the hike to the other end of the boat, slipping and sliding on the broken shale and dodging boulders as I went. When I finally reached the other end, I tried untying the rope, but I couldn’t budge the knot. With the weight of the boat pulling against the rope the knot had tightened significantly. With no fingernails (Someone or something sneaks into my bedroom when I am asleep and bites them off…that’s my story and I’m sticken’ to it.) I could not loosen the knot! Now what?
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