Our tribute to Chapel

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Almost sunk by the Love Boat from Finland

If that title doesn't grab you, then I don't know what will. And honestly it's the best description I can think of for our boating adventure last night.

Everything started out fine...you know the story, "A three hour tour...a three hour tour!" - We decided to take the new boat out after work on a sunny Thursday evening. We are still getting daylight here almost until 9.00 PM, so plenty of time to take a ride into Stockholm and back...so we thought.

We managed to get the boys in the boat and soon we were on the way. Now, a little background. Both Elizabeth and I are quite familar with boats and have grown up "on the water" so that is not a big concern. The biggest challenge we faced on the sandy bottom rivers and lakes of Alabama/Georgia was running out of cold beer. The Stockholm archipeligo is a very different animal - It is vast in terms of size with 10s of thousands of tiny islands that lead eventually into the Baltic Sea. Getting lost and hitting rocks are two of the biggest concerns. However, we managed to avoid both and within 25 minutes were having hot chocolate in the shadows of Stockolm spires.

Just about the time Elizabeth congratulated us for a good first outing, our boat lost power and ... well...DIED. Now any of you that have owned boats know the best 2 days with a boat are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. Unfortunately we combined both into one and our timing could not have been worse.

We came to a quick halt in a huge channel that is used by all boats including the Finnish and Norwegian cruise ships coming into Stockholm. We realized we were right in the path of one of these monsters which I can only describe as a water version of Godzilla. In terms of scale, they are at least 50 times as tall as a normal boat and about 1,000 times as long.

We immediately realized the boat was not going to crank back up, so we paddled...like hell toward the nearest shore. Just when we felt danger was passing the #!@¤ cruise ship turned straight for us. It seems in an almost unbelievable stroke of bad luck, our boat died and was now helplessly listing right between the Godzilla the cruise ship and its docking point.

Then if that wasn't enough, the jackass captain started to blow his horn which sounds like the trumpet that might be used to call up the 4 horses of the apocolypse. Now, my fear is starting to fade and I am just losing my temper. But then I realize that Captain Nemo is more than willing to run over a family of four if it means keeping his schedule.

So with the help of the nice longshoreman and my broken Swedish, we get towed along the bank until we are out of the Monster's path. After almost falling in the Baltic (which I might remind you was frozen solid one month ago) a few times, we stabilized and tied off. Soon a very nice Swede came by in a ferry boat and towed us to the nearby Slussen.

Ultimately we got the boat started and manged to get the boat back in its slip and the Swede Family Witherspoons back home.

When we stated this blog we promised to share experiences including mishaps and after two years of living here I can tell you this was certainly one of the top picks for the latter.