Kevin Bass

I am reading this thread today as a form of research after the fact. Yup! Left the drain plug out yesterday! I bought my boat two years ago and this past June I moved to a new place on a lake with a covered lift so I got out of the habit of removing the plug. I took it to be winterized and then decided to put it back in the water and run it to my lift with the trolling motor, a short but slow trip. Anyway I saw the water when it was about five inches deep, meaning the bilge was completely full and then some. I tried the bilge pump which did not work since the outlet and battery connections were already underwater. Next I went to grab the plug, ready to dive in to put it in the hole but I could not find the d**n thing!! Not sure where the guys who winterized left it? Anyway I could still run the trolling motor so I used it to beach the boat. The first thing that went right was that the place I beached it was shallow enough to allow the entire boat, stem to stern, to sit on the bottom. As I was in the water situating the boat, a young man in his early 20s came out of the house I was beached at and said that he just wanted to make sure I didn’t step on his actual property due to liability purposes! I explained my situation to him and then his mom came out and she was much more sympathetic! Sharing her plug story with me while I got everything situated. Still could not find the darn plug so I called my wife and started walking home. I’m soaking wet, trying to call my wife to see what is taking her so long when I see her car come around a corner. I go to jump in and she takes off like a drag racer! That’s when I spotted the license plate and realized it wasn’t my wife!! A bit later she shows up with a spare drain plug and a bucket and one more swim (to put the plug back in) plus a bailing session later I was back in business. Got the boat to the lift and up in the air and then used a paddle board to row out and pull the plug to drain the rest of the water. Now here, as Paul Harvey used to say, is “the rest of the story!” Today is January 30th meaning this all happened in January 29th. It has been a mild winter so far but I live in Washington State and it was about 45 degrees out yesterday. When I jumped in the water to beach boat I was in full-on freak-out mode so I did not notice how cold the water was. But when my wife came and got me I got to dry off and warm up and calm down a bit before returning to the boat with the spare plug. That second swim to put the plug back in was MURDER!! Once I got the boat all situated on the lift I spent about 30 minutes in a hot shower to get the chill off. I don’t recall a shower ever feeling so good!! Anyway this thread has made me feel much better so I had to share my own ridiculous story for the benefit of the next guy. Next up, labels and an auto-switch for the bilge!