Re: Common courtesy (lack of)
Okay, a story from the other extreme... I was having a beer on a friend's porch one evening several years ago when we heard some cries for help. We jogged down to the dock so see around the point and noticed the bow of a boat sticking out of the water and several heads bobbing around it. Yikes! We piled into my buddy's boat and ran out to the sunken boat. We pulled the four men out of the water, and were told that one of them was diabetic - and his testing kit and insulin had gone down with the boat! My buddy's mom is a RN so we ran them in to shore where she took over and drove them to the local emergency room.<br />So, this left me, my buddy, and his Dad alon with a case of beer and a sunken boat. Leaving the beer alone for the moment we drove back out to the bow-up boat, still out in the River with the stern hung up in the bottom muck. We managed to roll it over and hook a line up to and and towed it in. It was a 16-foot Starcraft, aluminum runabout with a 70hp Merc 3-banger on it.<br />Once we got it in shallow my buddy and I jumped into the water and walked it into their boat hoist, pulled the drain plug and started, slowly, pulling the boat out of the water. The cockpit was a mess of tangled fishing poles, lures from an open tackle box and gasoline that had seeped out of the tank's vent. <br />Now, I should preface the next step by saying that all three of us were boat racers and had dealing with a wet motor is not foreign to us by any means. So we grabbed the beer and some tools and started drying out the motor. Got a clean bucket and poured the clean gas off the water in the bottom of the tank, drained the carbs, pulled the plugs and flushed out the cylinders, etc. From the time the boat broke the surface to the time we had the motor running was about 25 minutes. <br /> We left the motor running and grabbed another beer just in time for the four boaters, now accompanied by the rest of their family returned from the hospital. The diabetic had gotten what he needed and all was well with that. I presented him with his soggy kit and he had a good chuckle, which turned to tears of gratitude when his son (who had not been on the boat) asked his dad why the boat was sitting at the dock and running if it had sunk less than a half hour ago? The look on his dad's face when he saw the boat more or less "normal" again was priceless.<br /> It was then that we discoverd the "how" part of the story. Apparently, one of the boaters, a very big fellow, had moved to the rear of the boat to help one of the other guys land a fish. At the same time a large boat wake hit the transom and washed over the back of the boat. The big guy stumbled a bit and sat on the transom to catch himself - just as another wave from the wake washed over and they reached the point of no return.<br /> Anyway, with everyone dried off, healthy and the boat working again, we fended off several offers of payment for our time and they were on their way. Next day, each of us had a really expensive bottle of Greek Ouzo delivered with a thank you note attached...<br />- Scott
<br /><br />It boogles the mind as to why nobody would help them out. They ended up paddling all the way back to the dock (about 20 minutes against the current).<br /><br />-JMW
