Charles came in as the sun was setting and the temp was dropping outside. He loaded up a cart full of stuff to take to NC from the boat and settled in to check his email and make contact with a one of his former employees to have dinner tonight. Ronnie has been a good friend to Charles.
In the midst of all of this, he made several trips back and forth to the deck boat - still pumping a full stream of water and has been pumping all day. He made some kind of adjustment, and came inside - called Ronnie to tell him he was heading out the door to meet him.
I walked to the front of the houseboat, looked out and yelled. The back corner of the boat behind the captain's chair was UNDER WATER and water was pouring in around the motor. Things got frantic fast.
We yelled for Tony and told him to RUN, and he came running.... we jumped onto the front end of the boat to shift the water load, me thinking we would be the last straws before she went to the bottom of the lake. The water shifted and the boat righted itself momentarily but was totally unsteady because of all of the water weight. Then we saw it.... the hull was totally full (that's 2 feet deep times the length of the boat)and water was coming up through the door. That means she's going under. Tony told CT to run to the dock store and get their larger pump. He did, they dropped it in (with me standing on the front of the deck boat to help balance it so the back end wouldn't go under water again and holding on to the houseboat for dear life. I was scared silly - I'm not exaggerating. The FEEL of a boat with a hull full of water with you standing on it is eery. You FEEL the weight of the water and there's NO balance to the boat.
Dropped the larger pump in and within a couple of minutes we could begin to tell a slight difference, but we knew we weren't out of the woods. When the deck boat is as it should be, we have to step UP onto the boat to get in. It is nearly a foot beneath the finger right now - dangerously close to going under and the water goes to the back end, putting it under water when we get off of the front end.
I suggested to the guys that we take the two large planters (several hundred pounds)off the finger and put them on the front end in order to raise the back end and shift water weight. They did and it helped some. But we had to get on the front too. I could just see us going under. It steadied some and they told me to get off.
I gave CT the phone and he called Ronnie and said there would be no going out to eat tonight.
We took a table off the deck of the houseboat and wedged it underneath the edge of the houseboat to help hold the front end down on the deck boat and that's where it is now. The small submersible pump is under water in the hull, pumping for all it's worth and Charles is on his way to Lowe*s to buy a large submersible pump to get the job done faster. He should be back here within the next hour.
We thought that boat was a goner. It may still be.
Tony said that the rain was awful here last week - every day - which meant that it rained IN that boat... so that's part of the problem. He then suggested that the bilge pump is still good but the boat battery is dead, so there was no pump to pump the water out of the boat last week. Possibility.
We'll see. I can think of a LOT worse that could happen, but I'd hate to see that deck boat in 105 feet of water - at the bottom of the lake.
Did I say earlier today that life is an adventure???? Let me go back and read that last blog!
