No, not us!
In our recent post, we mentioned that we had purchased a barbeque grill for our sailboat. Since then, Ken has spent a couple of hours getting the grill ready to install on Nirvana. After polishing and cleaning the grill for quite some time, we were finally ready to put the grill in its new home. It doesn't take much to make me happy, so I was really excited about installing our "new" grill. While Ken screwed the bracket to the rail of our sailboat, I held onto the grill to make sure it didn't fall into the water. After a few turns, the grill was on! After looking at it a minute, we thought it needed to be adjusted ever so slightly to the left. No big deal, right?! So, Ken turned the stainless steel bolt to adjust the grill, and ... splash! I couldn't believe my eyes! I'm looking at the bracket still tightened to the sailboat, but the grill is quickly sinking into the depths of the dark water! In seconds the grill was gone. My heart sank as I knew the water was deep and dark, and although I'm not a smoker I can't hold my breath at all.
Although it wasn't Ken's fault, he felt terrible. Who would have thought a stainless steel bolt would just break like that? I figured we wasted $50 and was trying not too look too disappointed. The next thing I knew Ken had his bathing suit on to try and find the grill. Knowing that there was no way I had the lungs (or the nerve) to dive down who knows how deep in the dark to find the grill, I was feeling really bad for Ken at this point. But, who was I to stop him? So Ken, the smoker, tried not to think about it too long and just dove in. He came up without ever even finding the bottom. He said it seemed like forever and his ears were starting to hurt. Not good! He tried again, and had touched the bottom but came up too far from where the grill had gone down. That was it - one more time and that was all his ears could take. Ken pushed himself straight down from our sailboat, and I anxiously waited and watched the bubbles floating up to the surface. Then, there Ken was with the grill in his hand! Miracles do happen! I was just as surprised by his finding the grill as I was when it sunk into the water. My hero! Ken did a "search and rescue" and all was good again. I don't think Ken realizes how much I appreciate what he did, so "Thanks Ken" for saving our grill! We've been told that the water behind our house is about 14-16 feet. Ken's ears are finally back to normal after several hours of saying "What"?
So after that ordeal we dried off the grill (and Ken) and put the grill installation off to another day. We needed a new stainless bolt, so we couldn't do anything anyway. Now, I'm happy to say the grill is on our sailboat, ready for some steaks! We heard that it's a good idea to rub the stainless steel with lemon juice and then rinse it. This is supposed to keep the steel from discoloring, so I'll be trying that soon. We're also going to order a cover for it, which we already tried to do on E-bay this weekend. However, I was told by the E-bay seller that I was "out of line" for questioning why her invoice was $7 more than her quote. She got upset, so when I have time I'll be looking for another seller. The nerve of me to question such a thing! =)
We're looking forward to this weekend, when we'll be going to the Madisonville Wooden Boat Festival. Hasta luego ... until then. Mid-Life Cruising!
Posts
8 comments:
Oh no! We have the same grill. Will have to keep an eye on that bolt. Nice going Ken!
I love a story with a happy ending. Good for Ken to give this a go. It paid off nicely and all is well again. You just have to have a grill if you have a boat. They come in really handy when you aren't hooked up to shore power. Well, those great little butane stoves are really nice too.
Have a terrific day. :)
Cheryl, you did it again! You made me laugh out loud. I find your "dry" sense of humor so entertaining. I could picture everything happening as you told the story. I could even picture the smug grin on Ken's face when he came up with the grill. Thanks, Ken, for saving the day and inspiring this amusing story.
That's great that Ken was able to snag the grill. Let's see, what did we manage to lose overboard in just a few years of boat ownership? A bunch of tools, a bike jersey, one Croc shoe, and a boat hook! The sea takes her sacrifices, that's for sure. One question: does your depth sounder not work? If it does, just turn the batteries to "ON", and you can instantly see how deep the water you're moored in is. At our marina, it was only around 6' but brown and muddy (and with jellyfish), so once something was gone, it was gone.
We have the same grill and use it all the time. Too bad I didn't know about the lemon thing because our grill became discolored immediately after the first use.
Hans is our 'diver' and loves any excuse to explore. He has trememdous lung capacity and scares the hell out of me! I, however, have no desire to dive into water if I can't see a crystal clear bottom! We ended up buying our grill cover from West Marine and in my opinion it was way too expensive but we were in a hurry! Too bad about the crazy e-Bay lady! Keep looking, I'm sure you'll find one.
Good opportunity to try out your sewing skills. Lulu made the cover for our grill (same as yours except it's charcoal) and it's basically just a drawstring bag and that's basically all you get from West Marine too.
Wow, the title was scary, but glad to see it's a grill. Another good training, as it won't be the first item to fall overboard and the need to dive to retrieve it :)
It sounds like we've made a good investment and glad to hear ya'll are enjoying your grills. Yes, after this post I thought about using our depth sounder..another brain freeze! We'll have to use our depth sounder to see how deep it is behind our house. Even harder I think is how dark and brown the water is. Oh, don't you know the E-bay lady apologized and is now sewing our grill cover!
Post a Comment