Wasn't the least bit funny at the time when I was truly wondering if my DH was alive, drowning or just plain drowned... couldn't find him, couldn't see him, didn't know where he was and he wasn't yelling for help. Years have mellowed the experience and now we do see the humor, although there is a bit of a cautionary tale in the telling....

At Anegada on a mooring ball, DH got up very early to enjoy a little private morning skinny dip. As he didn't want to make much noise, or call attention to his intention, he gently lowered the swim ladder to get in the water with no splash.

Unfortunately, the next to last step of swim ladder broke as he stepped on it, he lost his footing, there was a bang that echoed through the hull, and well, OOOPS the rest of us woke up sharply wondering WTH just happened???

We all pounded up on deck to see what was up, but there was nothing to see, just no D. We called, we yelled, we circled the deck, we raised enough noise that others on other boats appeared on their decks and we all came to understand that we had a MOB, but couldn't SEE the MOB location despite being on a ball in a small mooring field in glass calm water no more than 7' deep with every pebble on the bottom clearly visible.

As dinghy motors sputtered to life ( ours and others) I headed to the bow of our boat, trying for some calm in the midst of WTF'ery.

Yeah, well, there is D hanging on the mooring ball, his bald head shining white just like the mooring ball, looking at me with his eyes big as silver dollars, holding a finger to his lips saying shhhhh just please grab my swim trunks out of the aft head and toss them to me... then you can call everyone off, I'm good to get back to the stern but I'm nekkid right now and really don't want to be.

He was bleeding pretty well from his left shin, where the ladder step cut him, had a good goose egg on his left elbow and another over his left eye ( whether he hit the ladder or the transom matters not) and he didn't need any more than some bandaids, pressure, ice and Caribs.

Funny now, but holy crap that was about 20 minutes of my life I'll never forget.

Breeze