The Lake is a Jinx!

We took to our boat to Smith Mountain Lake last September and stayed with Eric & Denise and his parents at their lake house. All of us were in the boat on our way over to the marina for lunch, and we sucked up gravel into the intake because the water was so low and blew the engine. It was so sad because we just bought the boat last spring.

We went back to SML last weekend with Eric's family and were ready to have a great time on the water. We spent Saturday morning on Eric's boat and then Mike went to get his boat and pick up Eric's family from the house so we could all go to lunch at the marina. Mike came out of the cove with everyone on board (I was on Eric's boat) and said that his boat was taking on water. Eric and I could see the back end of our boat slowly sinking and he quickly got everyone off our boat onto his boat. Eric and Mike took our boat back to the house so they could put it up on their lift and get it out of the water ASAP. Denise hung out in the main channel with Eric's boat while we waited for the guys to come back on their pontoon boat so we could still go to lunch.

On Sunday, Mike and Eric pulled our boat out of the water and put it on the trailer so they could take it to Eric's local mechanic where it could be fixed. They spent the morning trying to diagnose the problem first and concluded that there's a hole in one of the tubes, as opposed to a cracked hull. We don't know what's wrong with the boat right now because the mechanic was in Miami last week at a boat show, but hopefully he can fix it soon. We'll have to drive back down there (five hours) to get it, but Mike wants to take it out on the water to test it.

Sunday afternoon when we were all leaving, we got in our truck to go and it wouldn't start. We first thought it was a dead battery but it wasn't. We didn't know what was wrong with it or how long it would take to fix it. Mike and Eric decided to stay behind and work on the truck and I rode home with Denise and the kids. It turned out to be a problem with the starter and they just had to go pick up a new starter kit from the store, which luckily was open on Sunday. It took them about 20 minutes to replace it and then they came home.

We did have a fun weekend, despite the back luck. I've concluded that SML is a jinx for us and our boat! It could also be that we shouldn't take the boat to the marina for lunch because each time we've done that something happened to the boat. I never got to try water skiing, but it was awfully chilly last weekend and I didn't need to get sick trying. We relaxed and enjoyed ourselves as much as possible and I caught up on one of my books. Maybe next time, we can actually use our boat!