1/15/14
Miami Beach FL
Posted by Bill

I forgot to tell you about a little incident with the dinghy the other day. First the background…the Coast Guard rules designate that for a dinghy our size, you need an all-around white light when the dinghy is underway in darkness or low visibility. In my captains license school, they told us about using a flashlight with a dixie cup on top, and that is what we did up until this last year. We figured we were using the dinghy a lot more while cruising, so we needed an official light, and bought one at the Annapolis boat show in October. The light is like a hockey puck with a magnet on the bottom and LED lights all around. We also bought a base that has a suction cup to attach to the dinghy motor and a magnet on the top to grab the puck. It is a great design, but it cost over $100, which is a lot to me for a damn LED light and base, especially when you look at the price of a flashlight and a dixie cup. So we buy this thing and have been using it when we run around at night. The other day when we went to a movie and dinner, we needed it to get back to the boat in the dark. When we boarded the dinghy, there was a guy with his son standing at the area where we tie up, and his young son was getting a kick out of watching us go through our boarding and launching routine in this little boat. I stuck the base on the dinghy motor and gave it a tug to make sure it was secure, put the light on top, Tricia jumped in the dinghy and we started to motor away. We went about 3 yards and the light and base fall off into the water! The water there was pretty clear and we could see the light at the bottom. It looked like it was 1 foot deep but neither of us could reach it. Now, the guy watching us is cracking up, as it probably looked like an Abbot and Costello routine as we tried to grab the light to no avail. Tricia jumps in the water, dives down and gets the light. Every time she tries to get back in the dinghy, her shorts begin to pull down and she has to abort. We have both lost weight since we left on our cruise and our cloths don’t quite fit too well…lol. This goes on for several attempts until she finally makes it into the dinghy, and the great light rescue is a success!!! Let me tell you…she is a gem…there aren’t a lot of wives that would be doing this.

Here is our precious light:

Although traumatized, it has made a full recovery and still lights up.

We also had a pretty cool sunset tonight: