Well, a group of us decided to play hookie from work on
Friday and go tear up the water at Lake Pleasant. Initially I was
saddled with running around in my Advantage Sportcat with 3 friends in their
25' Eliminator Daytona's. You know how things can get with these guys when
there's more than one of them out together
, sort of like
coyotes in a pack, but it was a nice day out anyhow! The day was extremely hot
and muggy with temperatures almost peaking at 110 degrees! These conditions
were less than optimum for making horsepower with our assemblage of tunnel
hull boats. While we could barely break the triple digit barrier, the day was
perfect for unobstructed high speed runs up the Aqua Fria arm of the lake.
Well, after a couple of heavy handed runs, Sean's
Daytona came to a slow stop. The first thought the rest of us had was that he
decimated the Achilles heal of the high horsepower I/O owner, the Bravo drive
. As we idled up to
him, he stated he lost a connecting rod or something. There was an annoying
metallic clanking when he started the motor. Not that big of a deal, he's in
the process of working a deal to replace his normally aspirated motor with a
10-71 assisted big block, timing is everything. So Donnie whips out the tow
rope and he proceeds with the hour tow back to the ramp. Naturally Sean was
extremely inconsiderate in breaking about as far away from the ramp as is
possible on Lake Pleasant
Just kidding
Sean! Hey at least these two guys just kicked back, opened the cooler
and enjoyed a nice day on the lake! As it turns out, later that evening Sean
found that all he broke was a rocker arm stud. He had it repaired and was back
on the lake the very next day!
We met a couple out on the lake early in the day. Matt & Karen were out running around with their beautiful 1987 Carrera jetboat. Turns out they live about a mile and a half away from yours truly!
After getting Sean's boat back on the trailer, Sean simply hopped in with Donnie. The day was still young! Rick picked up his wife Linda, his son, Michael and Russ & Stephanie. We were ready to head back out on the lake when we noticed a summer storm brewing north of the lake. We decided to make one more Aqua Fria run before heading back to the trailers. After floating at the no-wake zone at the back of the lake we decided to jam back quickly to avoid the storm! We just got the boats on the trailer before the ramp was engulfed in 3-foot breakers. Quite un-Pleasant like! We spent about an hour helping other folks get their boats on the trailer. You couldn't have driven the boat on the trailer, it had to be floated on to prevent smashing the hull down on the trailer. Once one boat was on the trailer, those folks joined in with the rescue! Quite a group effort!
If there was any down side of the lake outing it was Rick being cut off the road to the lake and jack knifing his boat, forcing one point of the cat's bow into the side of his pick-up, Ouch! The other was the sand storm we ran into on the way from the lake to the restaurant!
After a day at the lake we met at the Top Shelf restaurant on the way home from the lake. Besides our wives we also hooked with Mitch & Kim Holtz and Art & Carol Witzell. Carol was kind enough to forward the pictures she took!
We ended up with about 14 of us on the patio at the Top Shelf. The weather was perfect for food & friends!
From the left, Kim (Kimmy), Tonna, (Princess T), Stephanie, (Wicked Good) and Linda!
Rick (blown23vee) explains to Mitch (29wizard) just how fast he was hauling down the Aqua Fria. Mitch, it appears, doesn't buy it!
Damn, what's T thinkin' ?
