Saturday, January 17, 2015

Taking The River Rat Bad Boyz On A Boat Trip To The Chesapeake Bay

My Dad and I on one of those wild and crazy boat trips.

I have grown up being around boats my entire life and each summer my father and I would ask one of my friends if they would like to take a boat trip from the Delaware River to the Chesapeake Bay.

Each summer the boat trips lasted about 2 weeks, and believe me they were the best 2 weeks any guy could ever want.

My father and I had a 1950 41 foot Chris Craft that we totally redid from top to bottom.

Each summer my friends would wonder if they were going to be asked to take this 2 week boat trip. I asked a different friend each year, and everyone of these friends were in the Bad Boyz click.

As Summer was coming close, the friend I asked to join my dad and I on this boat trip began to start planning what we needed for our 2 week journey down the Delaware and into the Chesapeake Bay.

The most important items was Beer, and Lots of it.  The day before we were ready to set sail, my friend and I hit the liquor store to stock up on cases upon cases of Beer.  My father just shook his head as we came down the dock with a hand truck loaded with cases of beer. Granted we did have food, such as eggs, coffee, spam, blocks of ice (to keep the beer cold, LOL) bread and all that was need to survive out on the water.

As we were ready to untie the boat for this journey out to sea we cracked the first beer and drank like there was no tomorrow. I have to tell you we had a ball.

When we got to the Chesapeake Bay we anchored right off the Annapolis Naval Academy.  We had a dingy to get into town if need be, and you can bet we went into town to a bar called Mac Garvey.

They had great sea food and as fresh as could be.  You would think that all the cases of beer we brought to the boat would of been enough, but NO we wanted to be in that bar setting as all the young guys do. It kind of got boring just drinking alcohol on the boat, so we went into town for some action.

One night my friend, my dad and I went into town to have some shrimp and a couple of beers.  For some reason my friend and I told my dad we needed to go back to the boat that was anchored out in the cove. My dad's last words were, "don't be long and don't forget to come back for me!"

We hopped into the dingy and headed over to the boat. We got on board and had a couple of beers,like we really need to do that. After about an hours I told my friend we better go back and pick up my dad at the bar.  Here is were the Bad Boyz came out of us. 

Instead of taking the dingy back to the bar and getting my dad, we decided to pull the anchor and take the 41 foot yacht instead. What a bad mistake that was!

We fired up the twin engines and tried to get the anchor up. In the meantime I put the boat in reverse, drunk of course, and ran right over the dingy that was tied up in the back of the yacht.  The dingy flipped over with of course the outboard engine on it.  It didn't sink and we got the dingy upright and bailed the water out of it. In the meantime with all that going on the yacht was floating around the cove heading towards other boats that were anchored out also.  Don't forget it was night time and very dark, so we really couldn't see all that great.

We started to navigate our yacht between the other boats anchored to get to the pier were my father was waiting patiently, well he wasn't that patient to tell you the truth, he was pissed off because he was watching us from land and knew we did something we shouldn't have done, and that was pulling up the anchor of the yacht!

We finally got to the bulkhead were my dad was waiting.  We drove up to the bulkhead not able to stop and as we went by very closely my dad jumped into the boat and said, "what in the hell are you bad boyz doing bringing the yacht over here instead of the dingy?"

We explained to him that we ran the dingy over and it flipped upside down engine and all, and now the motor to the dingy no longer runs. His was pissed, but the worse part was, when I ran over the dingy all the rope that was attached to the dingy and the yacht was now around one of the props of the twin engine yacht.

We finally got the yacht back where it should of been all along. Now, my dad said to me, "you will have to go under the yacht and cut the rope off the prop.  I got my gear on, and don't forget it was pitch dark, and even darker under water. I felt around and started cutting the rope until all of a sudden I felt something stinging me, so I flew up the ladder onto the swim platform and told my dad something was stinging me under water.

He said, "there is nothing down there son.,"  So I headed back down the ladder and into the dark water once more, but this time I was entangled with tentacles of a huge jelly fish. I was stung on every inch of my body. I flew up that ladder so fast and as soon as my dad saw me a he knew I was in trouble, deep trouble.

He got on the ship to shore radio and called the Coast Guard for help. My friend and my dad put me into the dingy with ice being brought along for the stinging and burns all over my body.  They had to row the dingy to land  because of the stupid thing I did sinking the dingy and motor.

As they rowed to land I saw in the distance flashing light of an ambulance.  YES I was on my way to a hospital.

My body looked as if I was whipped from head to toe,  I was indeed in very bad shape to say the least. We finally got to the hospital and there had to be 30 people sitting in the waiting room waiting to be seen.

As I waited and continued putting ice all over my body the burning began to slow up a bit. By the time I was seen by the E.R. Doctor I was almost cured, lol. Lots of beer didn't even ease the pain I was in, but the ice did the trick.

Thank God I didn't go into anaphylactic shock for the poison that was dumped into my body by this underwater creature.

Since then I have gone into anaphylactic shock twice from being stung by Yellow Jackets. I am highly allergic to the bees, and believe me that is NOT something you would ever want to experience.

I guess I was punished for being one of those River Rat Bad Boyz....What do you think?



3 comments:

  1. Thank you everyone for reading and your support. Stop back later for more of the Bad Boyz

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  2. Sounds like a fun boating and beer adventure with the boys. Look at you back then, very handsome! I am sure the women were all up on you. lol. Your dad looks a lot like you. Yes, I agree that it was not a good idea to take that yacht. You are lucky it was a jelly fish that stung you and not a shark, but I am sure that those burns were painful. The ER doctor was a pretty girl I bet. lol. I am really liking this new bad boyz blog series. Voted up fantastic! Lovedoc

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    1. Love Dr. thanks for reading and your comment. No hot girl as my Dr.. We had a ball on those trips and wish we could do them again. maybe someday

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