A storm with a name on it

We have a rule in our family: don't go camping in a storm with a name.

I think we can safely extend that axiom now to include boating.

Earl blew past the eastern coast of the US and Canada on Sept 4th. I don't know if the storm we got that day was related, but the winds were howling - the strongest I'd seen all summer. The lake had never been rougher (in my experience, at least).

The lake was covered in whitecaps (♫ the weather started getting rough ♪) and our poor little boat was being tossed mercilessly (♪ the tiny ship was tossed!♫). Our neighbor had warned us about the really bad waves; he had already had his boat swamped twice and had to have a barge come to haul it up from the bottom, so we were suitably anxious.

The captain and Handy Dad headed out to turn the boat around so the bow was facing out. This helps to prevent waves from breaking over the stern of the boat and filling it with water.(♫ if not for the courage of the fearless crew the Minnow would be lost ♪)

Turning the boat is fairly straight forward: hang on to the ropes and ease it back out of the slip, spin it 'round, and then pull it back in and tie it up. Even a big boat like Dad's pontoon is easy enough to pull around when it's floating on water.

It gets challenging with the ropes are just barely long enough to reach the boat when it's out away from the dock.

But, if you're unlucky enough to lose hold of one of those ropes? Things get downright hairy. Which is exactly what happened to the captain.

Our poor wee boat was nearly adrift, save for the stern line Dad had hold of, and the boat was quickly bobbing and being blown towards the motor on Handy Dad's pontoon.

Oh, No! What do we do now? The captain scampered over to Dad's dock, while Dad nimbly climbed on to the back of his boat and started to fend off That Damned Boat ™ with his feet.

Gradually they were able to ease it away from the pontoon and back into its slip. I, of course, helpfully sat up on the nice dry porch taking photos.

I'm nothing if not helpful.

With the boat safely returned to the dock, we got to watch it bucking in the waves for the rest of the day.

And they were good waves.

Coming right up to the top of the dock.

And sometimes over it.

I fully expected the boat to be full of water after a day of this.

But it wasn't that bad. The captain headed out Sunday morning to run the bilge pump just in case, and hardly a trickle came out.

Needless to say we didn't do a lot of swimming that weekend.