Back from the boat trip up the Tennessee River and subsequent wedding on Kentucky Lake. It was fabulous and beautiful -- miles of water, with very little human interruption (albeit on a man-made, TVA-dammed lake). My family likes to party, and my liver is in shock. Stories will follow as laziness warrants, including pictures of the ghost of Cairo, Ill., the town that time and Huck Finn forgot.
But first: on the last night, a near-death experience. Not necessarily for me or members of our 19-strong wedding party, but definitely for the two (drunken?) idiots who sped under the bow of our boat in the canal connecting Lakes Kentucky and Barkley.
My Minnesota sister's husband, the expert captain/electrician/engineer/master of mechanics -- and pretty much the only person I know who I would trust taking my family on this 52-foot trawler -- was at the helm for the end of our evening cruise. Most of our 19 passengers were on the upper deck, where he was piloting from (the boat has a main level enclosed pilot house and an upper pilot house, for driving in the elements and with a better, higher perspective. I should note that despite our celebrations he was stone-cold sober -- he doesn't mess around when he's driving.
Anyway, this couple in a speedboat are heading to us from the other direction of the canal. Their spotlight hits us several times. We are the bigger vessel. There is plenty of room to our left/port side, the side they should be moving to. But they're coming straight at us, at joyriding speed, in the dark of night, in a narrow canal. Sensing that this is quickly becoming a game of chicken, our captain, my brother-in-law, finally makes a sharp turn to the right, to clearly indicate to Darwin's Shrapnel that we're moving to one side.
Now, our 52-foot vessel, fully loaded as it was, weighs about 100,000 pounds. I don't know how much their ski puller weighs, but suffice it to say we'd win any collision with them and live to see tomorrow.
That didn't stop them, however, as they kept heading for us through plain stupidity, ignorance, or both. My ER doctor sister braced the railing and thought to herself, in typical ER-triage process voice: "Great, those two are going to die, we're going to have to fish them out and attempt resuscitation, most of the life jackets are in that cabinet, we're going to be stuck waiting for the accident investigation, we're half a mile from the marina, and I'm seven months pregnant."
Incredibly, after my brother-in-law steered us sharply to our right, they steered the same direction -- to their left. This caused one final course correction by us, to our left/port side, and our whole party watched in horror as they skimmed just beneath our bow and blazed by our starboard side. Then they weaved to the other side of a much smaller boat that was trailing a few hundred feet behind us.
They were so amazingly close to being split in half, or to glancing off the side of our boat (well, to us it would have been a "glance" -- to them it would have been a life-ending blow that sent them hurtling to watery deaths while their engine possibly penetrated our hull). The sense of near-death in all our heads was palpable immediately afterward. You could taste it -- taste that these two idiots just came inches within ending their lives. Taste how close we were to having a really, really, depressing night.
Watching them continue past us, seemingly oblivious and moving their spotlight in erratic sweeps from shore to shore, we recounted and honed versions of what had just happened to each other, as if to pinch ourselves into confirming we saw what we thought we saw. Then we thanked my brother-in-law repeatedly for saving our night and possibly our lives.
Wow, were those two tools lucky. But if they keep on keeping on like that, I don't think the Darwin Awards will let them off the hook for much longer.
As you may have noticed, the site has changed. Sampa, the free-site host, did a version 2 of some sort.
Despite an FAQ that made it sound like allowing one's site to go through v.2 surgery would be okay, there were several flexibilities that surprisingly disappeared with the click of a button. (e.g. I cannot believe sidebars like this one are even narrower than before.)
And I'm told -- miraculously! -- that the conversion cannot be undone. Truth be told, I'm actually quite pissed. But free is free. Sampa has otherwise been good to me.
So I need to sort through site "features" to see how I can make do. Except that I don't have the time at the moment, in the middle of graduate classes and Lighthousehockey.com. (btw, I've removed that Lighthouse RSS feed so that you're not clogged with random Islanders hockey gibberish).
But I promise to touch up the accessories when I get a chance, and return to irregularly scheduled blogging.
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-dammed lake). My family likes to party, and my liver is in shock. Stories will follow as laziness warrants, including pictures of the ghost of Cairo, Ill., the town that time and Huck Finn forgot. 
Comments for "Fate issues an un-Darwinian ...
February, 2008