So here we are four miles offshore with no anchor. The engine want start because on our way out we kept running aground, and every time we ran aground we had to get out and push then start the engine again. Apparently the motor on Frank’s pontoon boat doesn’t have an alternator, so there we were just floating. Well, lucky for us the wind was kind of blowing towards shore and not off shore. The only problem was that we wouldn’t hit land until we reached alligator point, which was about eleven miles or so. Needless to say we were in for an adventure.
The only radio we had, so as to call for help, was rendered useless because the batteries were dead. So there we were just drifting, no food, no water, and more importantly no bug spray. By now the salt has dried all over us, were tired, and quite frankly bored and feeling stupid. What we didn’t know at the time was that Blake’s parents are wondering where we are and have sent one of their friends out looking for us. So he goes out looking for us around two o’clock in the mourning and runs aground himself. So there are two of us stranded now, us just drifting and Mr. David sitting on the bottom.
Luckily the wind shifted a little towards the shore and we run up on to a small island that is really nothing more than a sandbar with a few bushes on it. As we were drifting down the backside of this island we decided to try and get out and push the boat through a little cut. The plan was good-natured in theory because if we made it through we would at least be in protected waters and we wouldn’t have to worry about drifting out to sea. But, like everything else that night our plan fell short. The water was too shallow and we had pushed it so far up that there was no getting it back out until the tide came back in. By then we were all exhausted from lack of sleep pushing that tank of a boat across the bottom, and just sheer misery. That was our last ditch effort to try and salvage any dignity from our adventure so we all just tried to go to sleep on the bottom of the boat. We were all freezing from being soaking wet and that wind that always blows down there was cutting through us like dang knife. To go along with it the mosquitoes were in a war with the sand gnats to see who could bite us the most. I think I can speak for all of us that were on that boat when I say that we just wanted that night to end.
When the sun finally came up the tide had come back in enough so that we floated on through to the other side of the island. By then we could see Mr. David who was still sitting on the bottom. Later on we asked him why he didn’t get somebody to come and pull him off the bottom and he said they tried to but he told them not to bother, he had him a case of beer and he’d be fine.
Eventually Blake’s dad, Mr. Mike, found us drifting and towed us back to shore. The night was over and we could finally get some sleep. I still haven’t forgotten that night and never will. I haven’t managed to go night fishing again either, but give me some time and I probably will.
