Where do I start? Saturday we left Ian with my parents for the weekend. While, Victor and I took the new boat out for the first time up in the San Juan Islands to fish for some halibut and hopefully see some orca's... We drove to boat about 1 1/2 hrs and saw our destination for the night, a cove on Sucia Island called Echo Bay. The water was pretty smooth, minus some small choppy parts where all the currents meet up. As we were going through that choppy section we heard a huge "thud" and the engined revved really high. We killed the motor and right away Victor knew we hit a dead head. (floating logs that sink and rise)It literally knocked off our outdrive and it was dangling to the side. Somehow, (well not somehow, we know God was protecting us) we were not taking on water. A piece called the drive boot (just a small rubber hose) was still attached and if that came loose, we would have started taking on water. So, not even 2 hrs into our "relaxing weekend" we were dead in the water.
We called coastguard and because we weren't in immediate danger, they weren't going to come help us. They said we should call vessel assist or a private boat tow company to get a tow back. We called them... they wanted $250/hr to tow us and a tow back to where we came from would have been at least 6 hrs! No way we were going to spend $1,500 for a tow!! We flagged someone down who was nice enough to tow us into the Echo Bay so we could anchor and stay the night.
We made lots of calls the next day and Vic (Victor's dad) was helping us figure out options too. Well, by about 3 on Sunday Vic calls us and said there's a guy who will tow us for $100 plus gas costs! So, he came out and got us and towed us back to a place called fisherman's cove. It's a small town that the commercial Indian fisherman use on their reservation. They were the most helpful people!!! Praise God for them, the world needs more people willing to help like they all were! They towed us back (2 hrs) and used a boat crane to get our boat out of the water. They also found an old trailer to park the boat on until we could figure out what to do with it. On top of that, one of them drove us back to our truck at La Conner Marina (over an hr away). We got back to our truck at almost midnight on Sunday... so we got some dinner and stayed at an Inn overnight.
Currently... we are waiting to hear back from our boat insurance to see if this is all covered under insurance. It should be, but you never know... we also are going to have to buy a trailer by next week to go get our boat out of their boat yard (which they are nice enough to let us keep it there for a week). We already were going to get a boat trailer in the next few months... but now, it's on rush. Please be praying that everything gets sorted out and goes smoothly. We're not stressed about it anymore, we know we have a big God. If everything works out, this will actually be a huge blessing because we were going to be replacing the outdrive next year. Granted, it wasn't the entire outdrive, but it was something we were going to have to do. So, if the insurance covers it, we will only be paying a deductible and won't have to spend all the money ourselves on the outdrive.
Whew... So, even though it was the exact opposite of a relaxing weekend, we had a few relaxing times in between the stress. It was beautiful up there and we saw a few dolphins and seals. Though it was also very expensive, God seems to be providing ways to save money right and left. We're home safe and still figuring everything out and will keep everyone posted.
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