Day from hell or learning experience?

For mothers day the kids got me a new fishing pole (among other things) because I had mentioned I wanted to go fishing. So yesterday I mention to Dave that I wanted to go fishing after the rain stops. There is a damn up the street that you can catch and release that I was thinking about going to. We had planned on going out today with his friends from work to show us how to sail. But I think Cpt. Dave was "itching" to get out on the boat. He suggested that we motor out a little ways on the boat and drop anchor and fish off the boat. So off I went to go get my fishing license.

We were told that Walmart does licenses. Should have known the day was not going to go well. My son and

I headed to the sporting goods department. Of course no one was there. And of course the customer service was way on the other side of the store. So we had to walk all the way back to the customer service desk and wait 20 min. in the long line, for them to call an associate to sporting goods. So off we go all the way to the other side of the store back to sporting goods... Still no one there. Waited another 15 min for a manager and a trainee to go walking past me. The manager didn't even acknowledge me, the trainee asked if he could help me. Wouldn't you know, he didn't know how to do licenses. The manager seemed irritated that the trainee tried to help me and told the trainee to call another manager on the phone as he was walking away. So the trainee finally got someone that had a password to get in the computer and show him how to help me. The trainee said that everyone there seems to pass the buck and no one likes to do anything. I didn't go there to hear the store drama, I just wanted my fishing license so I could go relax and fish. Grrr.

Finally got my license done and get home. Its now 1:00pm and my oldest had invited a friend with her to come fishing with us. But just as we were getting ready to go, she says she was hungry and they didn't have lunch. So of course I needed to get them some lunch...

Now its about 2:00 and we are finally on our way. Cpt. Dave and his first mate Amber, take off to the dinghy to pump out the water from the pouring rains we had the night before. Leaving me in the car with the baby and 3 kids. We all managed to carry the fishing poles and gear, cooler, diaper bag, ect. and get to the docks to wait for them to come pick us up. Little did I know it was going to be a long wait.

Something happened on the way to the dock and the motor was running but wasn't "working" - the shear pin had broken, but Cpt Dave didn't know that was what was wrong at the time. Him and Amber were "stuck" and drifting. Dave dropped anchor so he could try to get the motor fixed. No such luck. He tried rowing, no such luck. So he had no choice to call Sea Tow (Tow boats USA - I am not happy with them, but that is another story). This was the first time we needed them today!!!

Since we started on a fishing adventure, I decided to let the kids fish off the docks while we waited for Sea

Tow to come rescue my hubby and daughter. They were happy to be fishing and didn't know that there was anything even wrong until they watched the wanderlust getting towed back to the mooring. They thought it was just cool to see the big Sea Tow boat. The Cpt of the Sea Tow had mentioned to Cpt Dave that it was probably just the shear pin, and West Marine was down the street, and he could be up and running in about 10 min. So Dave looked, and it was in fact a broken shear pin. Him and Amber paddled back to the docks and he left us all there while he ran to West Marine to get what he needed to get the motor fixed.

The kids had fun fishing off the docks while Dave left to get what we needed to get the motor running again. LOL he learned from this, and picked up some extra shear pins, incase it happened again, we would have some on the boat. When he returned with the part, first mate Amber and her friend Taylor rowed to the boat with him to help him fix the motor. I stayed on the docks fishing with the baby Autumn, Holly and Peter. The kids also had fun yelling across to the Wanderlust to Amber and Taylor as they fished from the dock, and the girls hung their legs off the bow of the boat trying to reach the water. What Cpt. Dave

didn't realize at the time was that at some point during all this, he lost one of his oars. But he wouldn't realize this until a little later.

YAY. He finally got the motor fixed and is on his way to come pick us up. At this point we should have called it a day. I think it is just after 4:00pm now. But NO, we head out anyway. Relieved, because we think the worst is behind us and we just want to anchor and relax with the kids while fishing. After the day we'd had up until this point, we figure what more could go wrong? Little did we know!

We get everyone loaded on the boat and all the gear on, and we set off. We didn't care that we still don't know how to sail and it is windier than usual with a stronger current than usual. We were just happy that we can finally be on our way. Cpt. Dave finally has the wind in his hair. :) and it was nice while it lasted. We headed out towards the hurricane barrier, out into buzzards bay. All by motor because our sails still are not rigged properly. We are thinking if we don't get lessons soon, we will get a sitter for the kids and just go out and play around some on our own. We were supposed to get lessons today but after this day we canceled them until we get the motor running better and a new set of oars.

Anyway, after going through the hurricane barrier we headed towards the light

house. The Palmers Island Light house. Some of the waves were splashing pretty high and the kids were loving getting splashed. Dave decided that it was too rough and he didn't feel comfortable anchoring to go fishing so we turned around and headed back in. This is when the motor started cutting out. From having to keep pulling to start it back up, the pull rope frayed and good thing Dave saw it because he was able to hold it before it broke so it didn't "go back in" - We had to tie the 2 pieces together, which was a quick fix, but still didn't fix the motor from cutting out. All the way back to the mooring, the motor did this. Good thing, for the most part, it would start back up after a few pulls. We had plenty of gas, so we weren't able to tell why it kept cutting out. Dave was thinking that maybe the conditions, and going against the current to go back in, was just too much for a  motor of this size. But he will look at it further before the next time we go out.

One thing we hadn't noticed on the way out, was what appeared to be an army fort. After googling when we got home, we learned it was Fort Pheonix. We will need to keep that in mind for an adventure in the future.

Wouldn't you know. The rope broke AGAIN, so we had to tie it off again. We finally make it to the mooring and tie up the boat. Dave decided that he would take only a couple of kids at a time in the dinghy. Dave finally realized he was missing an oar. So paddling with 1 oar, he brings Amber and Taylor to the dock first. Then rows back to get Peter and Holly.

Smooth sailing? Nope of course not!!!! After dropping Peter and Holly off at the dock, he heads back for me and Autumn. Does he make it? Nope!!! His remaining oar breaks!!! So now I am "stranded" on the wanderlust with the baby and he is drifting with the current into the bridge.

A call to Sea Tow again to "rescue" us a second time within a couple hours... They get Dave first. And it seems like it took an eternity to secure the dinghy to the Sea Tow boat. The entire time, Autumn is crying because she wants to go Bye Bye and she hates having her life jacket on. FINALLY they are heading towards us and we get on board and they bring us to the docks.

You decide. Was this the day from hell for us? Or a learning experience? We are looking at it as a learning experience. After needing to cancel our lessons for today, we realize we need to get the motor up to par, or get a newer one. Also we need a new pair of oars. I think I saw somewhere that we can get ones that float? I thought the ones we had were supposed to float, but I guess I was wrong. Also looking at a way to be able to tie the oars to the dinghy to prevent them from falling into the water. AND getting a second set of oars to keep in the boat.

Needless to say, all the kids, and us adults too, slept really well last night. It can only get better from here and we will be out on the boat again. This time we are Sea Tow members so we can get towed in for free from anywhere :)


I just looked and found out yesterdays wind speed was 28.7 knots. LOTS of wind for us green newbies.