September 8, 2009

A Learning Experience

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a very nice weekend. We had a quiet weekend at home. Well, it was mostly quiet. On Sunday we had some thunder storms roll through our area. It was quite cool and very rainy, we had our first hint of fall.


I want to share an experience with you and hope that you will learn from my mistake. This is another lesson learned on our little green boat.


On my previous post I shared a story about fishing in the Puget Sound. While we did take the little green boat out into the Sound, we used it on rivers more frequently. Our area of Western Washington is blessed with many beautiful rivers. One of our favorites for a quiet day of fishing was the Cowlitz River. We loved to fish near the salmon hatchery. It is a beautiful and very popular place. The fish are plentiful and the access is easy.


We decided to spend a nice summer day fishing on the river. We were just going for the day so we packed our little boat into the SUV and brought a picnic lunch. The weather was clear and warm. Since it was so warm we decided to stay near the banks of the river in the shade of overhanging trees. The fish like to hang out in the shade too so we felt this was a good idea. It also prevents me from turning into a giant red lobster!


We had a small anchor tied to our boat that we used to keep us in place. On this day Hubby decided that it would be good to tie the anchor to one of the overhanging trees so we could just float gently in the current and also stay under the trees. Being the good wife that I am, I agreed with hubby and tossed the anchor over a large branch that was nearby. We spent several hours happily fishing and enjoying the day and our picnic lunch.


We finally decided it was time to go home and started to pack up. One of the last things to do was to retrieve the anchor. We had to pull ourselves a short distance back to the large branch and I tried to get the anchor and rope untangled from the branch. This was becoming quite troublesome! The nylon rope was catching on the bark and the weight of the anchor was working against me. What to do...what to do...

I know! Stand up and reach over the branch to get the anchor and pull it back in. Well, I am not the most graceful creature on this planet. The idea of standing up in a small green boat and pulling an anchor up should never have crossed my mind. I would have trouble doing this if we were on solid ground, much less in a boat on a river. Add to that, the overhanging trees were kind of low. I am sure that by now you can see where this is going.



I reached up and put one hand out onto the branch to steady myself and just barely started to put any weight against the branch. The next thing I knew that branch had snapped and I was flying over the edge of the boat! Splash!! Face first into the river. I still had an arm around that darn branch and I was looking down into the water. I was submerged about halfway, about to my waist, still sitting in the boat. My other arm was flailing around trying to get ahold of something to pull my self up. I grabbed onto the arm Hubby offered and he helped my up.


Up I came, spluttering and shocked. Thank goodness I came up with my glasses still on! The anchor was still around that branch so we had to untangle it and get it back into the boat. While working on the rope and anchor we finally noticed that the branch was dried and rotten.


So there is the lesson for you all...Do not drape your anchor over a dead and rotten branch. It will break and you will not be happy.


Take care! Talk to you soon,
hugs,
puglette
:o)

11 comments:

  1. Gosh. Thanks for that lesson. Your mom is goofy.

    Slobbers,
    mango

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  2. I am so sorry!!! I've fallen into a couple bodies of water. It's no fun.

    Jess

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  3. OH, NOSE!!!! Well, at least you learned something. I'm sorry that happened to you.

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  4. You always have the most interesting adventures! I'm glad you still got to have a fun afternoon, and in retrospect, I'll bet you are laughing about it all.

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  5. hi puglette!
    oh i am so glad you were not hurt!

    that is a good lesson and a metaphor of life too.

    i always appreciate your stories!

    xoxoxo
    m

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  6. Hahaha.. I'm sorry you got an unexpected bath but at least now you have a funny story!

    Hugs,
    Ane

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  7. Well, it's a pretty river at any rate glad that you learned something without getting seriously hurt!

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  8. Great story! love the photos and story.

    And I'm not gracefull at all, either and I probally would've fallen out of the boat completely!

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  9. Hi Puglette! This sounds like something mom would have done, too! We miss you!!

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  10. I don't really drink coffee, so my coffe experience is very limited. But from what I've heard boiled coffe is stronger than from most other options and with a coarse grind so it's fairly easy pouring the coffe out of the pot without getting grout in your cup and I think that + clearing the coffe is the point of adding egg shells/egg white. I believe my grandma still boil her coffe (no need buying a machine after turning 80, right?) but I don't think she adds anything besides coffe and water.

    I'm glad you like the book. I love the books as well. I'm not sure how they chose the English title, though. The Swedish one (translated) is "Men that hate women" and that's the title in Norwegian, too.

    Ane

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  11. Oh my gosh I'm convinced you have an angel the incident could have been much worse. Blessings...and glad you still salvaged the day.

    Dorothy from grammology
    grammology.com

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