From the helm….
During this past weekend our
club had another great meet at our Lake Catherine, Arkansas
venue. The weather was better than we could have hoped for,
considering that almost all the State parks in Arkansas were
closed due to high water. There was an abundance of flotsam
on the surface, but depending up
on the direction of the
wind, you could generally find an area of the lake that was
clear for some great boating.
We had in attendance, members
and friends from five different states. There were boats of
all kinds/makes and outboards ranging from Gales to
Mercury’s
to OMC’s. I cannot recall a meet where we had such
a high number of rescue tows and out of gas instances. I
personally went dry once and sheared a pin
another time in
my hydro. I had received a tow Saturday from Doug Samstag
and also, from Ed Slominski. I believe Dave Samstag also,
was towed due to his
Mercury Super Hurricane acting up.
On Friday afternoon we pulled
together all the available boats and proceeded to do a River
Run on our way towards the Lake Hamilton Dam. Bruce Miller
in
his recently acquired and very beautiful Aritocraft ran
dry and it seems another boat did as well. Unfortunately,
many boats turned around at different times due
to their own
gas level concerns and did not see the idled boats. I barely
made it to the Crazy Yankee Marina to fill up and get back
home. Doug, back at the cabins grabbed a tank of gas and
saved the day for those in need.
There was not a lot of
trading parts this meet, however Joe Roth and Carl Fryer did
bring their fair share of parts, motors and boats. It seemed
this time was
more of a vacation for most. I personally had
all my family in attendance and the Samstag’s has a full
house as well. We all did what we love to do most…run
our
motors.
On Friday night the girls,
Heidi Guidry, Cindy Slator, Becky Samstag my wife Julie and
others helped put together a dinner of Cajon chicken gumbo
prepared by
Heidi, that was simply amazing. A job very well
done, ladies! Dennis Schmidt provided live entertainment
with his guitar and after dinner, we celebrated Dave
Samstag’s birthday with cake and ice cream.
This location for this meet is
quite a distance for most, however we always fill the cabins
and everyone seems to enjoy the lake. This has become an
annual
get together and I would like to keep it that way for
the future. In doing so, we have reserved the cabins again
for next year, May 20-23rd. Our next upcoming
meet will be at the Longhorn Resort on beautiful Lake LBJ
down in the Hill Country. It will be October 16th-17th.
Please don’t miss this one; it will be the last
wet meet of
2009.
Have a great summer.
George
Steve
Guidry & Family