As Fate Would Have It

In 2005, our personal year from hell, we decided, for various reasons, to move our boat to another marina. After spending a season there, we dealt with a few challenges, and so, at the end of that summer, we decided to move back to our favoured marina, only to find that there were slim pickings for slips. We wanted to go back to the same dock, which, at the time, had only one slip available....a channel slip. This meant that we would be open to the water traffic within the marina. Having little choice, we took that slip, and were there for two seasons.

Having a channel slip can be both a blessing and a curse. It is more open, and you can see more. There is constant boat traffic, but there is less foot traffic at end of a dock. As a negative, you are the recipient of exhaust and gas fumes, and you are open to potentially unfavourable winds.

In previous years, we had always been on an inside slip (which means additional tie-off options, a little more privacy, and a space for a dock box), so we had put our name onto a waiting list for an opening.

With our luck, that opening came this year, and we moved the boat three weeks ago.

This turned out to be a stroke of luck for us.

This past weekend saw high winds with higher gusts. Our trip back to the marina was challenging, but the most challenging was docking in high winds. We had assistance waiting for us at the dock and were able to arrive safely, but once we were tucked in, our friend and former "channel-side" neighbour told us his story.

He was packing up his boat from his weekend out, and saw this huge Sea Ray power boat coming down the channel having great control problems. It turns out that one of the Sea Ray's engines had failed, and this resulted in the boat losing control and hitting our friend's Prowler, leaving deep gouges in his hull, BUT if we had still been parked in the channel slip, we would have been taken out. The Sea Ray sideswiped our friend's boat then proceeded to crash into the empty dock......that we used to occupy until three weeks ago....HARD!!! Nearby boaters heard a tremendous crash as the Sea Ray hit the dock and were surprised that the dock wasn't demolished by the impact! Our boat, heavy construction though it is, would likely have been heavily damaged had it still been in the channel slip.

Sometimes fate works in mysterious ways. In this case, it was certainly in our favour.