INTO SUMMER… busy time (Part 173g)
The rain kept a lot of the
parishioners away which was a disappointment to the minister and the
Bishop. With fewer people at the reception after the service it meant
getting away from the church earlier than I’d expected. Elle had come
with the kids and after they were introduced to the Bishop they headed
for home. Since she’d dressed while I was at the church I had no idea
how she’d ‘prepared’. What I did notice was that she didn’t use the
church rest room. She’d heard enough horror stories about it (and had
probably been involved in one or two) that she avoided using it if at
all possible. My calculation of time worked out to over two hours since
she’d left home. That told me she’d probably worn a full ‘package’. I
knew she’d started keeping a log of just how long she could last before
dribbling and then voiding. Not wanting to put pressure on her I’d not
brought the subject up… but I was curious.
I made my ‘break’ from
the reception around 12:30pm and, with the weather still bad, decided
to head for the sailing club to confirm my earlier thoughts about
cancelling the races. There were always a few ‘die hards’ who’d brave
just about any weather just to prove a point. As I pulled into one of
the many vacant parking places I could see three sailboats being
buffeted by the wind and waves. It was what I’d dubbed as “boat breaking
weather”. I recognized the sail numbers of two of the boats as being
the same as at the last big ‘blow’ a couple of years prior and
immediately shook my head in disbelief thinking some people never learn. I didn't get out of my car but
sat and watched as one of the boats turned over and swamped… not a good thing. I
could see one of the problems facing them was that there was no one out there to
rescue them. All of a sudden I saw a woman come rushing up to the car. I
cranked down the window and could hear her pleading for me to go help
the guys in the water. Here I was in good clothes (that’s the way we
went to church back then!) and my good shoes. But, you do what you have
to do so, still behind the wheel, I stripped down to my boxer shorts. I
could see the sailing club skiff anchored a ways off the beach and made
my way through the waves out to it. It was a battle just to climb
aboard. I just flopped into the boat trying to catch my breath. I
thought I heard a voice and looked back over the transom and saw that the woman
had followed me. I definitely didn’t need that! After a struggle to get
her aboard I told her to just sit on the floor and stay out of the way. I
was able to start the outboard motor and then pulled up the anchor, heading for the two men
clinging to the capsized sailboat. The other two sailboats had dropped
their sails and were now drifting towards shore. There were three things on
my mind… make sure the two were not in any obvious distress; get them on
board the skiff and, if possible, tow the boat to shore.
Once I
made the commitment to help I’d focused on what I had to do. Now headed
for the swamped boat I came up with a plan. With the difficulty I’d had
getting on board I wondered if they would be able to make it up over the
side. I knew one of the two and he was over 6 feet tall and pretty
stocky. I was 6’1” and weighed around 160 and with my bad back knew I
wouldn’t be able to offer much in the way of helping them into the boat. That’s when I
looked back at the woman. I’d not paid much attention to her and saw she
was all balled up with her arms around her knees and her head buried in
them. With just a quick glance I thought she was wearing a bathing
suit. I thought I remembered her wearing a dress when she ran up to my
car but wasn't sure. I surely didn’t need the distraction of having to worry about her. I’d
made it clear to her that I didn’t want her doing anything unless I
told her. I don’t think I spent more than 30 seconds focused on her
before arriving at the now completely swamped boat. The only complaint
the guys had was in being cold. Even though it was July and the ambient
average temperature was in the 80’s, the water was still below 70
degrees and the two of them had been in it for at least 20 minutes. I
got them to swim to the skiff but as I’d sort of expected they didn’t
have the strength to get themselves up and over the side and into the
boat. By now the woman was beside herself screaming at me to get them
on board. She was now standing and holding on to the console. That was
the first time I really focused on her. She was actually a girl. I had
only a second or two to look at her and saw she was in a bra and bikini
panties and not a bathing suit. But I didn’t have more than a few seconds to try and remember
what she’d been wearing when I heisted her up and into the skiff. There was no
time to take that in so I got her to go to one side of the boat and the
give one of the men a rope to hold on to and I did the same for the
other guy. We were probably 1000 yards off the beach and being blown
towards it. I asked them if they had enough strength to hold onto the
ropes if I slowly tried to tow them to shore. They both responded
affirmatively so I started the motor. I told the girl to keep her eyes
on both of them and to let me know if either one let go of the ropes.
They dog paddled to about 10 to 12 feet behind the skiff so I felt
reasonably comfortable about not having them or the ropes getting caught
up in the propeller so put it in gear.
It was while we were making
our way towards shore that I saw two other small power boats headed in
our direction. At that point I figured they could focus on the swamped boat so focused on getting to the beach. It
was while looking at the approaching boats that I was finally able to
relax enough to take a closer look at the girl. By then the adrenaline
rush was wearing off and I found myself shaking from the cold. I’d not
thought about the rain up until this time but found it actually hurt as
it was hitting me. She was about 5’3”’ tall and her hair looked like it
might’ve been blonde when it was dry. It was hard to judge how old she
was because of her current physical and mental condition. My eyes
stayed on the two guys with a glance every so often to look at her. She
had what had been described in more than a few books I’d read, “perky
little breasts”. The bikinis were nylon and wet nylon is not only
translucent but pastes itself to the body. For a few seconds I could
feel myself getting ‘warm’ but a quick look at shore got my attention. I
wanted to tow the guys in far enough so they could touch the bottom but
I had to be careful not to get too close to the shore. If I did, with
the size of the waves, the propeller could touch bottom and if that
happened it could shear the pin that attaches it to the shaft. Then it
would be me that was in trouble.
My next problem was in
getting the girl off the boat. The way we were bouncing around I was
afraid that she’d get hurt when getting off. With the guys making their
way to shore I focused on her and when I faced her she might as well
have been naked. But, there was no sign of my responding to that
stimulus. We were both cold and she was scared. I told her she might get
hurt but the only way to get ashore was for her to get up on the side
of the skiff with her legs overboard. Then, when I yelled she had to use
all her strength to push up and away from the skiff. It took a couple
of tries to finally get her to do it and when she did she was
successful. I then drove the boat out away from the beach, threw out
the anchor, dove over the side and made my way to shore.
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment