It was not a dark and stormy night. It was
merely dark and cloudy. The lake lay calm as glass. So, I was
not concerned when friends arrived just after eight on Friday
night to visit for the weekend. I crossed the smooth lake under
heavy clouds. There was not much to see but the silhouette of
the land. It's easy to cross the lake at night, so long as it
is not foggy or raining and the wind doesn't blow too hard. I
had no concerns at all, until I came near the shore. Now, where
is that dock? I used our brightest flashlight to scan the
shore, found the dock and pulled in.
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MATHER |
I left the running lights on in the boat
while I walked the lane to the gate so J and E could find their
way to the dock when they arrived. They got to the gate a
moment after I had opened it, and drove on down to park.
I joined them at the dock, and in a few
minutes, we were on our way.
Just as we drifted away from the dock, I was
telling them how I used to be younger, and all this travelling
about hauling everything around by boat every time I came or
went was perhaps....
And then the boat did not start. When I
turned the key, it made that little rattling sound that means
the battery
isn't doing what it should. A little voice
inside told me I should pull back in and tie up again, but I
didn't listen because there was no wind, we wouldn't drift very
far.
I shut off the lights, tried again. Nothing.
I tried the tilt button on the motor to see it that worked, and
no, the battery was definitely not functioning.
Hmm. Could leaving the running lights on for
five minutes have drained the battery? I didn't think so. I
looked at the battery, wiggled the cables, tried the key, and
still nothing.
Alas, I decided to try the rope to do a
manual start. We got the owner's manual out of the glove box,
and the rope. I lifted the lid, only to find that the place the
rope goes was covered with a plastic cowling. I wasn't
keen
on having to remove nuts and parts to get to
the flywheel. But indeed, the manual said this was required, so
we
got out the tools.
Eventually we got everything set up, and I
pulled. Hmm. It was much harder than I had thought. A 50
horsepower, four-stroke engine has a huge amount of
compression. Even with both J and I pulling, we could barely
make the wheel turn.
Meanwhile, we had drifted a hundred meters
north. We were nearing shore, and there was no way for me to
lift the motor to keep it off the bottom. I scanned the shore
with the flashlight, hoping to see the neighbour's dock, but no
luck. They had pulled it out for the winter.
What to do? It could be another hour before
Allan came looking for us. My thoughts just kept turning to
what would I do if this happened in November.
Finally, I gave up, got out the paddle and
sat on the bow to paddle us back to the dock. It only took
maybe 10 minutes. I got warm enough to take off my coat and
mitts. And it was indeed a beautiful night.
We drove from there to a neighbour's house to
borrow the phone. Allan suggested I try some things with the
battery while waiting for him to come over. We went back to the
boat, tried this and that to no avail.
Ten minutes later, Allan arrived, popped on a
jumper battery, and we all headed home.
Viki Mather lives on a lake near Sudbury.
