Final stretch!
We all came to realize our biggest complaint of the whole trip was "chairs". If you take nothing else away from my story, let it be this. Buy the very best chairs you can afford. The most expensive helm chairs ARE worth the money. Ours was a bar stool with (what we considered @ the start) a very soft cushion.
Just 2 days out from Evansville & I wish I had skimped more somewhere else and bought a good helm chair. The navigational chair was really a nice, adjustable office chair with arm rests. It was not tall enough to steer from, nor did it have a foot rest (very important part of sitting high for long stretches). We also skimped on cabin chairs, opting for chairs that folded up, in case we needed the room. We never did need the room & paid for our choice the whole trip! On a hike it is your feet but on a long houseboat trip it is your butt. Air movement @ the helm was a issue also. A 12V. fan would have been nice.
After my lunch, I reminded everyone we were on a smaller river (after the Miss., the Atchafalaya seemed tiny) and we needed to slow & reduce wake when we encountered fishermen. This was for the obvious benefit of Zone man. He was on the home stretch & acting like a barn soured horse, chomping at the bit & prancing, with saliva oozing out at the corners of his month.
I knew we "could" make it home today BUT... it would mean trying to find mooring late in the night getting friends out of bed & transferring gear in clouds of mosquitoes. Sorry bud but we will spend 1 more night on water. I had a craving for boudin (boo-dan) for a couple of days. I wanted to stop @ the only real town downstream & buy a few links, then find a spot for the night close by. Shoot tomorrow was the 4th, (we were 2 days ahead of schedule), maybe they would have a Cajun band & Fe Do Do, who knew? I took a nap.
Well, you snooze, you lose! I woke up to find a "executive decision had been made whilst I slept. We were well past the town & headed home. Mutiny! Just plain ol mutiny. I wanted to set him & his wife in the skiff and set them adrift. It was late afternoon by now, the first cove I came too I pulled in & dropped anchor.
The atmosphere was "chilly", not much more than nods & mumbles. It had been 1,000 miles & many days in close quarters. We needed to be done with this trip.
" Were SINKING!" came the cry." The basement is all wet!" While not a nautical term, I knew what our friends meant. The cuddy floor was under water. A quick check of the forward bilge pump revealed it had given its life in its attempt to save the boat.
You could smell that it was toast, a dark spot was evident on top of its housing. Man, I tell you, a thousand things rushed through my head! OK Ted, you're the Cap'n , now what?
I saw the "deer in the headlights" look on the faces of my 3 crew. I started barking orders." Pull the skiff along side, Get a bucket, Call the Parish sheriff, call Bob (a friend) Get the papers, Make sure there is lots of repellent in the skiff, get flashlights!" Oh my gosh, were these words coming from ME? They sounded far off somehow. Could this really be happening? The rest snapped out of it, they started thinking of things to do also.
We were a GREAT team; all was done (and more). We had never talked about or drilled for a real emergency. We all did great, I must say. I settled on a little ledge just forward of the bilge well. and started bailing like hell.
Zone was the stair man, he lifted the heavy 5 gal. bucket up out of the cuddy & twisted to set it in front of the sliding door. His wife pushed it over & the water ran over the deck, into the river. Marybob made the calls and gathered the "stuff". Bless her heart, she also called our son and bade him "goodbye" In a moment of calm I overheard this. "This isn't the $&^%*^ Titanic, were NOT going down in 40 fathoms" I hollered "were going down and I don't know HOW deep it is" she replied. We were only 20' from shore. Lol.
As we settled into a regime of bailing, it seemed at first the water was not going down! I kept at it, we all did. I'm not sure when, I remember I was dog gone tired, maybe after 1 hour of intense work, I got a whiff of bleach.
Whoa there, my brain said, this isn't river water. It's potable water. We were not sinking. " Are you sure?" "yep, fix some sandwiches, were OK".
I'll wind up tomorrow with pretty dull ending & some thoughts.
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