Flipping over in a paddle boat. Cross that one off the bucket list.
How exactly do you accomplish this task? Read on.
My daughter and girlfriend were on one paddle boat. My girlfriend’s 12-year-old son, David, and I were on a second paddle boat. We had actually switched paddle boats in the middle of the lake because the reach to the peddles was a little long for the girls on their boat and made it hard for them to peddle. Switching boats in the middle of the lake? No problem.
So David and I ended up on the one paddle boat that also had an awning on top. Foreshadowing – awnings on top of paddle boats make them more top heavy.
Not our actual paddle boat – but close.
I did not have my phone on my at the time, thank goodness.
David and I, being stupid boys, were peddling like madmen to chase and scare geese on the lake. Task accomplished. However, during one furious peddling spurt, the chain slipped off the paddle boat cogs. Oops. Dead in the water.
I got the chain back on the front cog, but that still left the back. So, figuring that I could still fix it, I stepped out to the side of the paddle boat with the idea in mind of swinging myself around behind the seat by the chain and rear cog. As soon as I stepped to the side, though, the boat started to sink down rather quickly with my weight on just one pontoon. David, who has a football player’s build, was unable to balance the boat in the other direction and slid in the seat TOWARD me. With our combined weight quite unequally distributed, we now had the whole thing tipped at about 45 degrees. There is that moment — that one crystal clear moment — where you realize, ain’t nothing you can do. So I let go and pushed myself back toward the water in hopes that without my weight, the thing would plop back down. But, alas, no, that is not what happened.
As I sank into the water, the last thing I saw before going under was the whole darn paddle boat coming down on top of me. With no real thought to take a breath, suddenly I found myself under the darn thing and my glasses floating slash sinking in front of me. I grabbed them, slammed ’em back onto my face, and pushed back out from under the boat and upward toward the surface. I did not immediately know where David was, but it seems he flipped off at a different angle and the upended pontoon conked him squarely on the noggin as he went into the water. It gave him a nice bump, but he ended up okay! He lost his glasses too but caught them in one hand and came up on the opposite side of the boat from where I was at. He was a bit startled; probably after being hit in the head and not having as many stupid experiences like this as I have had in my life — so I wouldn’t think of giving him any crap about it! We hung out on the underside of the paddle boat while the girls went to shore to tell the paddle boat people to come rescue us. I tried to swim the boat in, but there was enough lake current to thwart my effort and I could only go in circles with little progress toward shore.
A pontoon boat eventually came up and threw us a line. David got on the pontoon boat and I stayed with my vessel. They towed us slowly toward shore, but I warned them to stop before we got in too shallow water or we’d rip the canopy off the top of the paddle boat. Soon as my feet could touch, I let loose the rope. I got a good footing and worked my grip down the canopy support braces until I had the craft sideways in the water and was able to flip it back rightside up again. One of the paddle boat guys came out to the dock and we tied it up.
I was a bit concerned they were going to be honked off at me but they were quite congenial and even offered our rental money back. I did not take it. Chain-slip aside, I figured by this point we were even. 😉
p.s. Paddle boats look much more intimidating when they are falling on you and/or when you are underwater underneath one accidentally. I’m just saying.