Man Overboard

Mom, this post is for you.

This past August when I came home to visit family over leave I made some awesome memories. It was just the right temperature to lay out and catch some rays on the Chowan river. Boy, do I miss my tan now! Everyday on leave, I woke up carried coffee and a book with me to the pier and proceeded to find my inner zen. After two or three cups of coffee, the dogs got restless with me, and the sun was just rising high enough to feel the warmth infusing into your skin. I love that feeling! 

For those of you who are not familiar with the Chowan River, it is located on the Eastern part of North Carolina. It is approximately 2.5 miles wide and empties into the Albemarle sound.So, not a small body of water we're talking about, to say the least. I've posted a picture above.

While I was home on leave my mom had to work, which was fine with me because there is no better place on earth to lay out, than on that river. After three days of my Mom working on the computer, she was finally ready to lay out with me. A couple of years ago, she came up with the idea to connect carabiner clips to a long rope so we wouldn't have to worry about holding onto the floating dock. Best invention ever! All you do is clip the carabiner to your bikini and the other end to the dock and you are set to lay out for hours without drifting down the river! And believe me, its happened to us before.

After napping on a float, in the water, as the waves rolled under us for a couple hours, we decided it would be a wonderful idea to take the paddle boat out with our carabiner clips. With the carabiner clips with all us,  we can hook up to a buoy and relax out there without drifting away. First, I must let you know that this paddle boat is not ours. We borrow it from time to time. The neighbors don't mind.  

I ran over to the house to get all of the necessities needed. I stocked up on chips, diet coke, sweet tea. I grabbed my phone (for music), sun tan lotion, and books for each of us. I put all of these contents into a beach bag along with two towels to sit on. I figured if we we're gonna take a paddle boat trip, we might as well do it in style.

I met my Mom out by the river to help her flip the boat over. That was the easy part. We pushed the boat into about a foot of water and as she got into the boat, I held it steady. The water was perfect for the boat today. No wind, and the water was very calm. I hopped into the boat and we began to paddle for the sandbar about 60 feet away from land. My music was set up. We had our sunshades on and sweet tea filled our bellies. After being at boot camp and A school for so long, it was so nice to be able to catch up, especially in a paddle boat, tanning in the sun. What could be better than that, right? Well, soon you'll know just how many things can go wrong with a mother and daughter in a paddle boat together.

Now, as we paddled to the sandbar I noticed that my mom's side had a little more water on her side than mine. I figured it was probably because she's heavier than me, so I simply moved the bag to my side and we continued to paddle. No big deal, right? When we arrive at the sand bar, I pulled out the carabiner and rope and clipped us to the buoy successfully. We pulled out the chips and I got my music going. As we talked, the boat gently rocked to the waves of the river.

Now, our boat continued to gain water while we sat rocking on the sandbar. I noticed that the water had began to pick up and get rougher. Quite violent, I could even say. With each wave, more and more water crashed into and against my Mom's side of the paddle boat. Now, I'm not gonna say that my Mom was panicking but....she was panicking!! As she talked me through unclipping the carabiner from the buoy we drifted farther away from the buoy. The waves were working against us! 

At that point, her side of the paddle boat was about half full of water. The boat had also drifted about ten ten feet away from the buoy. She threw the remains of her tea into the river and began to use her tervis tumbler tea cup as a bucket to scoop the water out. "Danielle, we have to paddle backwards to get back to the caribeaner and unclip ourselves." she yelled. "Paddle!" In all the fervor of stress and panic, we paddled in circles, unsure of how to get our boat close enough to the buoy to unclip ourselves. Our legs were tired! We probably paddled for a good ten minutes before changing our plan.

She wasn't in tears yet, but I could see the look of fear in her eyes. I grabbed hold of the rope and began to pull ourselves toward the buoy as she continued to scoop the water out of the boat...unsuccessfully. Her cup is ten times smaller than the amount of water that was in our boat, but I wasn't going to be the one to tell her that, especially, in the middle of our current situation. Also, I might add that on the sandbar the water is only about 4 feet deep, but as your boat is sinking, and your mom is panicking that we're gonna drown, you tend to keep your mouth shut about pieces of information, as such.

My mom was holding the beach bag high above her head sitting in the paddle boat half sunk alarmed beyond belief. Both of us are sitting in the paddle boat seats a good waist deep water. "Danielle, we're not gonna make it back to land. And nobody is down her to see us sinking! Get out of the boat! You have to get out! It wont hold us both. You can make it back, right? The teach you to swim in boot camp. You can make it! It's not that far." As we looked back to land, we saw our two dogs staring at the situation in confusion. If dogs could talk, I'd imagine they were making fun of us.

The boat literally could no longer hold both our weight. She basically pushed me out of the boat. I began to swim and assured her that I could make it. We were about 40 feet away from land. She still held the bag above her head freaking out,"I'm gonna sink. The boat's gonna sink!" she cried. I swam next to the half sunk boat and pulled her safely to the pier. The whole time I was swimming, all I heard was, "Are you OK? Danielle, can you make it? I can't believe I pushed my daughter out of the boat." she panicked in hysteria. "Mom, I'm fine, I can touch the bottom here." I assured her. She didn't seem OK with the situation, just yet.

I finally got her to the pier and managed to coax her into getting out of the boat to swim back to shore. "I can't get out. I can't get out. I can't reach here" she cried. "Mom, were at the pier. We're back. You can touch here. It's OK." She managed to put our beach bag onto the pier as we walked/swam our sunken boat through the remaining water and to land. When we finally managed to get it back on land, we noticed that the plug was missing in the bottom of the boat. "You think we needed that?" I asked. My mom was still a little shook up. I think she may have even ignored my question.

Don't worry, my phone made it. So did the chips. Our towels, however, were soaked. And after we recovered, we laughed. I'm not talking about small chuckles of our man overboard situation... I mean, to this day, everyday, I relive the memory in my head, I cannot help but roll into peels of laughter. I laugh so hard tears explode. It's so funny everytime I think about it. I can't explain it. Just writing the story right now, has me laughing awkwardly in spectrum, like an idiot. I'm pretty sure people are even staring at me.

Now, you guys may mot see the comedy in this story like my Mom will. She'll be able to recount our little trip and smile, because out of all of our paddle boat memories, this day will remain at the top of the charts. Have you ever laughed so hard, you can't even talk, and your face is red and your arms are flailing like an idiot. Yep, that's me right now.

So, Mom, when I'm out on deployment, and I miss you I will think of our awesome time you threw me overboard and we panicked together. Love you!

DG