My moment of calming reflection ended when dad’s boat appeared on the horizon.

The bow was barely visible because of the smashing 4 foot swells it was plowing through. My brother-in-law’s  canoe was crossed like a ‘T’ at the Lowe’s stern. I could see it bouncing on the sides of dad’s boat – gold paint chips blowing away in the wind like confetti. Dad told us later that they tried to tow the canoe but it kept capsizing in the massive waves.

I plunged my mug back into the frigid water and took a second gritty swig. It always hurts to see your favorite fishing boat ‘take one for the team’.

While dad’s boat approached, I turned my attention back to making sure the fire would be large enough to cook the huge shish kebabs my sister was preparing.

Dad’s final approach to the shore was difficult. He had to throw a bow and a stern line out (simultaneously) to keep our boat from blowing parallel against the pebbly shore. After we carefully unloaded our boat, we had a new dilemma to solve.

Do we put the bow on shore (this would be easier to accomplish) or bow away from shore (more difficult to perform)? We assumed that the wind would die down over supper so we decided to pull the bow of our craft on to the shore  – at least until after our evening fish.

For the next hour things became as they should have been.

Well, except for the wind. There was no escape from the noise of hissing branches. It did not die down. After a great supper – things got worse.

After supper dad checked on the boat. He quickly returned to tell us that it was full of water! The water was up to fishing platform in the bow. From the steering console to the stern there was 4 to 6 inches of water depth. The high waves had thrown water over the stern while we were enjoying our campfire supper. Our Lowe had essentially become a beached whale and its hull was now facing the pounding of Opeongo’s windy fury.

Fortunately, the bilge pumped worked when we flipped the switch, but for some unknown reason our outboard would not start. At this point we made another wrong assumption. We thought that the high water levels in the battery compartment was somehow impacting the fact that the engine would not start and that battery was dead. It then, seemed strange that the bilge pump was still working. Normally, it was wired with the engine wiring hardware. With numb fingers, frosty noses, a fading sun and a howling wind storm it never occurred to us that the batteries, and some of the wiring harnesses, were just in the wrong spots. So, we concluded that we should not run the bilge pump for too long because we would need a charged battery if we managed to bail the boat out by morning.

We pulled both batteries. Nobody detected that the reason the E-tec would not start was because the engine wiring had just come loose (from the a poor tightening endeavour – not by me I should add) and that the bilge pump had been attached to the trolling motor battery.

Now, we had to bail by hand. Dad took the first shift and I took the second. It was wind and icy, cold water against man.

We lost.

I had been bailing for over an hour and the water never retreated more than an inch. My face was numb from the wind and any sensation of actually having fingers was non-existent. The arrival of darkness did NOT cause the wind to cease.

Defeated, dad pulled me away from the boat and we decided that we should let the storm blow over while we slept and rested. Opeongo’s storm won this round. Our boat’s hull and electronics were at its mercy. For all we knew, we would be stuck here indefinitely if tomorrow’s fate for us did not change.

On the way back to our tent – snow began to fall…

-End of Part 2-

Algonquin Park, Evinrude, fishing story, lake opeongo, Lowe boats