Great story, and nicely told!

Here's mine:

It was our very first charter, and it was a freebie...must have been 1980 or '81. We had just sailed her down from Ft. Lauderdale, and Evelyn Whitney had arranged for an Editor of Yachting magazine to do an article on crewed charter boats...from the vantage of our boat.

My wife and I (and our mate) were nervous to say the least. Evelyn Whitney was the MOST influential broker back in those days, and she could make or break a new boat on the scene.

There were some glitches, but basically all was going well. Our plan called for a trip to Anegada. Now, I'd been to Anegada a hundred times, but never in a boat that drew 8' of water. There were no navigation aids, and certainly no GPS. And there was no dredged channel to the commercial dock; in fact the WAS no commercial dock. Typically, one would radio Lowell Wheatley at the ARH, and he would guide you in from shore. You know, like this: "Go left, go left, LEFT...OK now straight, now left..." It was a tense ride to say the least and we bumped the bottom more times than I can remember. Finally, Lowell said that was as close as I could get, and I dropped the anchor - which was merely a gesture, because I could feel my keel burying itself in the sand, like a flounder running for cover.

I was excited to get the hell off the boat and talk to Lowell - I hadn't seen him in a while. So my wife started serving lunch to our important guests (the Editor, her boyfriend, and her daughter) and I hopped in the dinghy.

Unfortunately, I broke my own strict rule of tightening the connecting clamps before taking off, and about halfway to shore the dinghy engine flew into the air, and subsequently in to the drink. About ready to cry, I dove down and attached a line and a fender to the engine and paddled into shore.

All the while, our guests were watching with binoculars, with my wife refuting everything that they saw: "Oh no, that's not possible! He just stopped to catch a lobster. He's like that! He gets distracted!"

Once on shore, I confessed what had happened to Lowell. He gave me an engine, I retrieved mine and brought it back to him, and he cleaned and purged mine, so that it was ready when we went ashore for dinner. All at no charge. Lowell was some kind of special guy!

Our guests were a bit confused, but once the lobster was presented, and the rum was flowing, no one seemed to care.

I loved Anegada back in those days...and I know that I'm not the only one who misses Lowell. He died way too young!

BTW, we had a very nice article written about us in Yachting. I have it somewhere...but am too lazy to look for it. It was entitled 'Leave It to the Skipper'. Ha! If they only knew!