It's eighty degrees and sunny today in Okeechobee, and a great day for a boat ride. So, four couples are going to ride from Lake Okeechobee Canal to Taylor Creek and stop at Cowboys BBQ for lunch. Okeechobee is crisscrossed with numerous canals running in all directions. But, once we get to Taylor Creek and head north, its a straight shot for several miles to the state route 70 bridge and Cowboys is just north of the bridge.
Randy and Tom unloading the pontoon.
Tom pulls the pontoon up to the dock to load the passangers
We are underway with the ladies in the bow,
guys in the stern.
One of the safety rules to always follow on any boat is to be sure the weight is evenly distributed. Too much weight in the bow or the stern can cause a serious issue. Our Captain expressed some concern about too much weight in the bow, but we all laughed it off and kept going. We had no idea this would come back to bite us later.
We're on the canal that surrounds Lake Okeechobee heading to Taylor Creek.
A few cattle grazing along the canal.
This is the intersection where the canal intersects Taylor Creek. Just as we turned north, we were greeted by the vultures and they were looking rather hungry We are all hoping we wouldn't be part of their next meal. Little did we know how close we came to being exactly that!
Here's a couple of nice homes along Taylor Creek.
In about 75 minutes we arrived at the state route 70 bridge. We had to lower the canape to get under this bridge. Cowboys is less than a hundred yards past this bridge
We beached the pontoon and made the short walk up hill to the restaurant. Todays special is baby back ribs, all you can eat!
Lunch was good but the service was very slow. By the time we finally left Cowboys, it was cloudy and was starting to rain. After going back under the bridge, we slowed enough to put the canape back up, Randy handed out some ponchos and some of the gals broke out umbrellas.
We noticed the pontoon was slugging along and was really struggling. We must have eaten too much for lunch because the pontoon was pushing a lot more water than usual and the bow was much lower than the trip up here. The first mate stepped to the bow to see what was wrong. The weight shift pushed the bow below the water and a flood of brown water gushed into the pontoon. Amid the screams, my brain flashed to an image of us sitting at the bottom of Taylor Creek eyeball to eyeball with a hungry gator! We don't want to die like that! We hadn't even digested our lunch yet! Vultures were already circling the pontoon! Our hearts were pounding out of our chests, our lives flashed before us. A split second later, the weight equalized, and the bow lifted out of the water. The brown gush of water swept through the pontoon and exited out the stern.
Once we all caught our breath, a collective sigh of relief made us all realize we just dodged a bullet. We happily waved good bye to the vultures, it stopped raining, and everyone wore a big smile the rest of the uneventful trip home.
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