The S.S. Minnow

As near as I can tell, this boat was beached late Monday a week ago. Either gas was low or they were running out of daylight. Not sure.

But that night the surf was small, probably 2'-3' max with light winds. Ding got it good and to himself  but left before this happened.

Tuesday it blew hard from the south so getting it off the beach was a no go. Wednesday was back to sunshine with north west winds. But now the swell was running twice the size it had been on Monday. We saw from the north end some movement on the boat. I had passed a beach ranger on the path and he gave me little info on the boat, but was hoping to get it off the sand before the Labor Day weekend.

Figured it might be the owner, sure enough it was. With two in the boat and two out they began to work the vessel off the bar that formed the mouth of the creek.Rocking it back and forth as the tide pushed in, they got into knee beep water and tried to push it out and over the shore break, but the boat was too heavy and the creek too shallow and despite their efforts they could never get to deeper water.



Thank God too, because between the beers it seemed to require for launch and the lack of life vests on any of them, it was going to go from funny to sad in a heartbeat. Last time I read a FiberForm owners manual they SPECIFICALLY forbade surf launches and I'm pretty sure it voids the lifetime warranty.

There was a solid crowd watching this spectacle but no help was forthcoming  due to the cockiness of the crew. When an old guy said to them "Good luck." the response was " We don't need luck, we got skillz!" forgetting apparently for the moment that those same skills that had beached the boat on Monday would now have to be relied on Wednesday for the more difficult task. Not a good track record. As they pushed it into the creek run-off the first mate(?) flipped off the beach thinking he was headed out to sea, but he had jumped the gun on that one.

The show came to a close just at the top of the tide when it became clear that there was to be no launch and they wrestled the boat back into the creek. And that was when I left, relieved that they had not gotten out. Between 6' sets, the wind and cold water, as well as the beer and lack of surf experience it would have ended badly.

There's a fine line between comedy and tragedy