My very own Indiana Jones moment ...

A little back story ...

Our esteemed boat ( finally to be christened "Safe Harbor" ) has sprung a leak at the swing keel. The swing keel is a 1500 pound piece of iron that swings down out of the hull and ... is a keel. Well I was cranking it up one day and my hand slipped and rather than catching, the winch just let the keel freewheel backwards all the way from the hull to full open ... with no slow restraint. The entire boat shook with a loud "boooom" and I suspect a bolt holding up the keel pulled out of the fiberglass. I ended up installing a bilge pump and spending a frustrating week getting a hold of someone who could do this kind of work ( getting a 25 foot boat out of the water without a trailer requires a crane, hydrohoist or some other similar lifting mechanism ). Jonestown has a fantastic crew and I'll plug for them any day; awesome group of guys.

And so the adventure ...

So this evening, I was getting the boat ready to motor up to Jonestown for a repair and maybe a paint job. Sharon was going to meet me there and no one else happened to be around at the time so I was alone for the trip. I had backed out of the slip and shifted to forward gear and I thought I might be closer than I wanted to be to the other slips and boats. I leaned out over the edge to have a look and ... here's the stupid part ... I slipped in some water and fell over the side. Oops.

I grabbed a wire safety line that I hadn't fastned yet that was dangling in the water. As it turns out I was pretty close to the rest of the boats because I had to bob my head under water to avoid getting creamed by the motors on the other boats ( when tilted up they stick out a few feet from the boat ). I'm getting real close to dead while I'm trying avoid motors and avoid being crushed between a dock and my boat or another boat and my boat and the safety wire slipped out of my hand. I reached out and grabbed a fender ( bumpers on a boat ) and it came off because it was just pressed into a cleat. I threw the fender back on the boat and grabbed another fender and try to hoist my self up. The boats was just too tall and I couldn't get up it and then I finally got my thoughts together enough to have an idea.

I pushed off the boats side into a slip. As my boat motored on by me, i swam out and grabbed the rudder and climbed up the rudder to the railings and hauled myself aboard wet pants, shirt and al. All I could think was, get away from the boats, get this thing out of this marina. And I did, I cruised easily the rest of the way out. Remarkably, there were no scratches on me, and no scratches on the boat. I got off scott free.

So there I was soaking wet, still wearing pants a shirt from work, heart beating its way out of my chest and all I can do is laugh because you know what? My hat stayed on the entire time.

I guess the only thing missing to make this a full on Indiana Jones stunt is a big brute kicking my face in as I climbed aboard. Can't have everything I guess.

Ross

summer fun

ross and i have been enjoying our 2nd summer in austin, albeit significantly hotter and drier than last year. my mom and jared and rachel stayed with us a few weekends ago for about 24hrs while jared played in a basketball tournament. we still managed to have a blast. we convinced my mom to play golf on ps3, watched basketball, played with peyton, swam in the backyard pool, took rachel on a brief bday shopping trip, and introduced my mom to reef flip flops at the mall.

over the july 4th weekend we met up with my parents and rachel and also the J's at my mawmaw's lake house. we ate awesome food, went out on the boat, and played rockband! fun times.

this past weekend we had a blockbuster movie nite and then a game & cake nite over at B's place. on sunday afternoon, mike joined us and we motored the sailboat to a cove, threw out the anchor and swam, swam, swam. i say swam. mostly i wore my life jacket and...bobbed. it was most pleasant to have mike along as he can help ross get the boat in and out and do other various helpy things that keep ross and i from getting annoyed at each other as i invariably mess one of these things up. and mike does them very well, and is also a cool guy, and therefore we had a recipe for one awesome afternoon. we took our floating cooler that BH gave me for my bday and tied it to the boat and it worked awesome. it was almost a perfect trip, without incident, but ross did suffer an injury to his big toe. which resulted in blood and nastiness. but still we all had an awesome time. pics to come soon!!

we have also been playing in our tennis league, valiantly trying to improve, which we are. we also taking some lessons from a local high school coach who also plays in our league, though he is in a different league than us, if you know what i mean. ross is going to have to sit out this week though due to his toe injury, so i will play with a sub. hopefully ross will return the following week where we can snag our first match victory.

one of the reasons i love being married (and there are many) is that ross takes care of me. he takes care of me in a lot of ways, even in silly ones. for instance, i was just being a good wife cleaning the kitchen up for the evening. when i opened the pantry there was a HUGE ROACH. our house is almost bug free (which i LOVE)but when there are bugs...they don't mess around! they are nasty! so i, being the adult i am, immediately dropped the box of granola bars i was putting away and began yelling ewwwwwwwwwwww and shuddering in disgust. ross came running in and killed that sucker, as i cowered several feet away, still disgusted. see, how awesome that is? if i was still living alone, i would have tried to find roach spray (which would never have killed this thing) and then discovered him missing, and have him stalk me for weeks while i uncomfortably lived in my apt, hoping he didn't crawl on me in my sleep. but instead, he is dead and i am happy. and i love ross and his manly self. :)