Thursday, March 21, 2013

I'm in my 18' Precision sailboat. My wife and two friends are with me. It's daytime and we're afloat on an inter-coastal waterway that has thick forests on either side. There are lots of other boaters out. One of my friends asks what our motor looks like and I point to a small, blue electric outboard that looks nothing like our motor. I turn to my wife and tell her, "I forgot the battery." I'm referring to the lithium-ion battery that powers our electric motor. Even so, I get the motor working and we begin zipping along through the waterway (we're not sailing, just motoring around). The water is milky like an eye with a cataract, but the edges are turquoise. The water level begins to drop rapidly. Large masses of mud seem to rise to the surface. I have to do some slick steering to avoid them--and I don't avoid all of them. We skim over one mud mat and I both hear and feel the keel scrape the bottom. I'm worried we'll break the prop on the motor, but it just skims the top of the mud and we continue on. I grow increasingly more worried for the safety of the boat--and its passengers--as the water level drops even more.