Sorry I didn't get the post of the family trip out Monday as promised...you didn't miss much.
We ended up with about about 15 on board counting the little ones. Didn't feel cramped at all. The cruise itself was a bit short. Just as were leaving we heard that one of our cohorts had a rope wrapped around one of their props so we went down to see if we could help. Several tries later we decided that the wind, current and size of our boat was all working against a successful rescue. We hung around until we were sure others were on the way and continued our trip, up river this time.
About 20 minutes past our marina I looked back to check traffic and noticed the sky was starting to look ugly. A quick check of the iPhone radar app confirmed we were looking at a pretty bad storm. I made a quick U-turn and headed back to home base. I didn't want to be trying to get to our slip at the same time everyone else was doing the same thing. Turned out to be a good idea. As soon as we were tied up there was a steady line of boats heading in...quite the cluster for a bit. Less than 20 minutes later the wind began to howl and the hills of Cincinnati disappeared in a wall of water. We were quite relieved to see our friends towed in and tied to the fuel dock just as the storm started to get bad.
With nothing else to do we cracked a cold beer and adjourned to the flybridge to watch the storm....probably not the brightest idea but it was impressive to watch. It lasted about an hour but the boat and crew made it through fine. I was so busy being a rescue man/tour guide/stormwatcher I never took a picture all day, sorry.
On a good note; the next morning I got my dive gear and was able to free the line from the prop...a day late rescue but still building boat karma. I'm sure we'll need plenty in our future adventures.
We plan to head to the Reds Friday fireworks tomorrow night....maybe I'll remember the camera.
