Up Deep Creek Lake with a Paddle

Day Three – Tubing and tumbling at Deep Creek Lake

The morning dawned early for everyone today.  In part because everyone one has to be up and ready to roll at 8 a.m. so we can have devotional and be down at the boat rental place at 9.  The second reason it comes so early is that we were all kept up late by a dying bird.  Well, turns out it wasn’t a dying bird, but the scout making that noise after 11 pm was risking death and dismemberment.  He is just fortunate most of us were too tired to unzip our tents.

We have evidence that we had another nocturnal visitor because he/she left a footprint on the back of a plate that was left out.

We get up, have our usual breakfast menu, have devotional and head for the boat rental docks.  We arrive at a two story building with a screen door on the front.  We walk through the door and are whisked back in time to somewhere in the mid-70s.  I keep expecting for Jim Rockford to come out of the back with Angel (if you don’t get that reference, don’t worry, you are simply too young or lived too sheltered a childhood).  He sits down and it is like renting a car only worse – you know the drill:  “please sign here, here, here, here, here, and here; initial here and here; feel free to take the time to read the fine print but don’t mind me I’m just sitting here waiting on you while others also need help and besides all it says is what I already told you with the possible exception of the part that states if you do any damage whatsoever to this boat I own you, all your worldly possessions and your first born.”  I am relatively stress free as Conway is the one having to sign the paperwork.  He pulls out a map, reminds us that if we do any damage to the boat including the props we will owe him bags of money and then he tells us where we can’t drive – which seems on the map to be a large portion of the lake – that we can’t pull folks under the bridges, that there are speed limits in some locations and the lake is practically crawling with cops.  Having most of the sunshine sucked out of my balloon we ask if there is a beach front we can use to drop off those who won’t be in the boat.  He starts telling us about docks by subway restaurants, etc.  We tell him that isn’t quite what we had in mind.  He then refers  us to the state park as probably the best location.  We leave two cars at the boat rental lot and the other two vehicles load up and head to the state park. 

The rental place doesn’t rent out wakeboards but we have provisioned a tube and a pair of water skis.  The boat holds about 8 – so with a driver and the two deep, we can take 6 boys per trip – so it will take three groupings to get everyone out and we have to divide them by size so that the boat can pull folks out of the water.  Turns out the boat has the pulling power of a coconut laden swallow, which is to say, not a lot.  This then requires a Chinese fire-drill whenever anyone changes position so that we keep enough weight in the front of the boat. 

We no sooner clear the buoys from the docks than we pull out the tube and start the festivities.  It is a two person tube, sort of.   It was a pretty tight fit with some of the Priests - especially after it started deflating.  We tried to get a willing, able, and skilled driver, but all we had was me (2 out of 3 ain’t bad?).   I do have to admit a sort of guilty pleasure out of matching my ability to throw them from the tube against their youthful exuberance and physicality.  It is pretty fun to get that turn just right so the cut of the boat whips the tube out of the wake and skims across the water at a high velocity while it’s inhabitants lean into it and hope that the tube won’t catch a wave an toss them.  Fortunately, for entertainment purposes, it frequently did.   Don’t worry moms, I was pretty nice to them.  Most the time.  But not so nice that 1) they didn’t feel challenged, and 2) that they stayed on the tube too long.   In fact I think the most damage we did to any youth was a little hand burn from the tube whipping after the rope got too slack once and some wounded ego – not from falling off, but from not being able to get on.  We weren’t so fortunate with the leaders as Conway managed to put a pretty nice slit into his toe on the prop.  What made that better was that he bled all over the boat which some of the YM hoped might chum sharks.  None appeared.

We had a few folks who gave skiing a shot, but if they didn’t already know how to ski, the water was pretty choppy and our time too short to really give them a good try, but they got an A for effort.  We also pulled into a cove with each group and let them jump off the boat into the water.  I sort of lost track, but I think most the YM took a turn out on the boat and everyone who was on the boat tried the tube at least once or twice seemed to enjoy it.  Conway was my co-pilot for the first and last trips while Randy took the middle session with me.  The also served as our offical photographers and got some great shots!

John had the unenviable task to keep the bulk of them busy at the park while we were on the water.  At one point we were boating out from the state park where we could see them and I did see some bocce ball being played.  There was a small beach area they enjoyed but the rest of the lakefront activities were given the kybosh because they had pretty strict regulations about what you needed before you could be in the water and as we mentioned earlier, lots of water cops to enforce it.  At one point I thought I saw a scene similar to one from Lord of the Flies taking place, but it might have been the sun stroke setting in on me.

We did have a couple incidents on the boat when the boat would not get up to speed.  It would choke like it was running out of gas.  The first time this happened, we do what most manly NoVA men do – we opened the “hood” and looked at the engine.  We touched it here or there, looked for anything that any 5 year old might have noticed being wrong, and not seeing anything then announced in our manliest voices “well, I don’t see anything that seems to be wrong with it.”  As we were making our way back it started to act up again.  We were all a little disgusted with it and it was suggested that given that they rented us a faulty boat, maybe they should cut us a little bargin on the boat.  And we had to re-inflate that tube ourselves since we were on the other side of the lake.  We were in line to get gas at that point but decided maybe they would throw in the gas as an exchange.  Under the “you don’t get what you don’t ask for” line of thought we sent our A team negotiators – Conway and Jacob to work some magic.  I stayed behind and helped get the boat tied up and clean out.  The boy at the docks looked at the floor of the boat and asked what that was.  I told him it was blood.  He told me that if we didn’t get it cleaned up he was going to charge us the $250 cleaning fee.  Hmm, that seems to be going in the wrong direction.  So some of the YM came over and used their towels to help clean it up.  Apparently our A team hadn’t been up against the likes of Jim Rockford before because they came back and had to go put gas in the boat.

All things considered, it was a fun day on the water.  I wish I had more water to drink and some more sunscreen, but it was fun.  And most the youth seemed to manage to use enough sunscreen.  We did have one YM who apparently didn't quite get enough on his face.  After we were done boating multiple attempts were made to let him know that his skin tone resembled that of a ripe tomato and offers of Aloe were given - but turned down.  The YM indicating that he was sure it was red but that it would by tomorrow be a lovely golden brown.  We have our doubts.  Aloe.  Aloe.  Aloe.

When we had first arrived to return the boat John was there and said they were headed back to camp.  We said we would join them as soon as we could.  Because we had to drive slowly back to the gas station and then back down it took a little while – like close to 30 minutes to get gas and get back.  Then we still needed to run to grab some groceries for dinner.   After reaching the store I realized that my wallet was left on the boat.  We called them and they said they were closing but would leave it on the boat.  As you can imagine, I was quite anxious to retrieve said wallet.  So my car took off to retrieve that while the other car bought groceries.  Arriving at the dock I retrieved my wallet and we proceeded to camp.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or rather camp, it was more like Lord of the Flies.  Those who had arrived put on some water and expected the food to be there shortly.  When the water boiled, which takes some time, and the food had not arrived.  The natives went crazy and started to eat organic food.  Not like pine bark and wild roots, but Marcus’s organic food he had brought.  I arrived with the food just in time to prevent all of them from becoming organic food eaters and thereby increasing the food budgets of their families exponentially.  We dined on al dente pasta (interpreted as “we cooked it as long as we could but were too hungry to let it cook all the way), with a marinara sauce, a lot of garlic bread (does that attract or repel mosquitoes?), and some fruit. 

The typical field games took place again, but I was feeling a little tired from the day on the water so I remained behind.  John “Ironman” Evans played.  Bro. Casillas cooked donuts for the boys while Hunter presented the devotional that night.  After which I happily climbed into my tent for the last time.