After almost four months the boat is back in the water and running fine. Got the motor all hooked up today. Ran like a Deere.

I had no idea it was almost four months until Sal said, “You should get your boat going, you know. It’s been almost four months!”

“No way!”

“Think about it. We pulled it up around the first of December. It is past the idles of March.”

“Ides, sweetie. Ides. I-d-e-s.”

“Not with you, it isn’t! It is idles!”

She has such a way with words, that gal. And so it was that I was prompted to get on it and on it, I did. Once running, I zoomed about for a few minutes and appreciated the magic of having my own set of wheel (AKA ‘prop’) again.

It didn’t come easy.

Friday was the designated day to bolt on the motor and that was because the tides suited us. The lagoon dried around 10 and flooded back around noon – according to the book. It was a short tidal difference but enough. So we set the boat on the cradle and went to have breakfast and then returned to the lagoon with the water at the 8 inch level.

Perfect. It would just run out and we would have a couple of hours.

That was the theory, anyway. Either we miscalculated or the tide difference was even less than indicated. The eight inches we waded into was not us entering a receding tide but a flooding one. The water was coming in and it was already almost at boot height!

Damn.

At first we tried to ‘beat the tide’ but, of course, that never works. The tide always wins. Ask King Canute. So then we just settled in to working the bolts as the water crept up. We finished with the lagoon at crotch height.

Grand.

That was my second time that morning getting soaked through although the first time, I dressed for the occasion by wearing very little. When I put the boat on the cradle around 9:00 I had to do it when the lagoon water was high enough to get the boat on. That’s about 3.5 feet. So, in swimming trunks and flip flops I waded into it and placed the boat on the cradle including tying it on so that it didn’t float away.

By the time I was done, about half an hour had passed with me in the water and Sally clucking repeatedly that I was going to ‘catch my death’. Numb hands and feet made for awkward climbing as I left the lagoon and ascended the rocky slope heading for home, breakfast and the warmth of the fire.

You’d think after all this time messing about in boats we’d have this thing worked out, wouldn’t ya? And, in some weird kinda incompetent way, we did. I just had to get soaked twice and Sally had to get soaked with me.

It’s a great system.