We said goodbye to the old family boat dock today. It was tired and old and we dont have the resources to keep pouring $$$ into a private dock. More importantly, I am tired of maintaining my private dock. EVERY big blow. EVERY windstorm... you have to go down and check it. If youre lucky everything is okay. If youre not you could wake up one morning, look out your bedroom window, and see your dock floating freely down the lake. (Yes, its happened). In recent years Robert has really come in handy. Besides, it really takes TWO to man-handle a dock in even the lightest breeze. And when the Corps is adjusting the lake you have to keep up when it goes up and down rapidly.... Like in 2008 when we got a LOT of rain and the lake rose in terms of FEET per day. Robert and I had just secured the dock with the ramp a little up on shore, predicting a rise in the the lake level overnight. Before taking him to school the next morning at 6:30 we checked the dock. It was at least twenty feet out in the lake, and the anchor posts for the cables were three feet underwater. It was January and a very cold morning, but we knew we had to dive down and free those cables, and re-establish an anchor point on dry land. I could not count the number of times sheer winds would come across from Gamaliel and literally blow our dock 2-3 feet up on dry land on a corner. It wasnt too many months ago when I prevailed on my neighbor to take his tractor down to push my dock back out in the lake. Robert and I were actually ON the dock one day when a big one blew over and we got trapped on the dock when it hit. A gust came along and picked the entire dock up - with us on it - and set it down gently on the shore about 6 feet away. The metal roof is like a sail. Several years ago a drunken rich idiot flatlander who had borrowed a friends cruiser for a little spin down the lake... NOT with his wife....... and he hit the side of our dock with the Bayliner and destroyed the edge finger of the dock. My pontoon boat was sitting in the next stall, facing out (we had used it for a swim platform). The guy cut right across the bow of my pontoon and the prop just sawed the fronts off the aluminum pontoons. When Robert and I went down to the lake the next day I said Hey! Wheres the pontoon boat? It was gone. We got on to the dock and saw the pontoon boat, sitting underwater in about 12 feet of water, motor and all, still hitched to the dock. Long story short: We DID find the damaged boat and traced down the culprit and he had to repair my dock and replace our pontoon boat. He was glad to do it. Over the years though, the old wooden dock has had a rough life. Countless skiing parties and hanging out at the dock, combined with the constant wave motion of a high-traffic area of Bennetts Bayou ... AND the storms and wind.....Has taken its toll. Shes a pretty battered old hulk, save her iron ramp on wheels and new sealed floatation, and the motion is slowly pulling her apart. Weve tried to keep up but it is in need of major restoration and we just dont have the juice. A neighbor made a fair offer and we sold it. Just like that. Well, it wasnt really the DOCK he was after. He wanted the permit. We knew that, hence the satisfactory offer. He will most probably just tear down the dock, keep the floatation, ramp and maybe even the stand-offs and build an entirely new dock (according to the permit specs) using modern metal technologies. Its his dock now. And his headache for as long as he owns it. Most folks around here just pay some local to maintain it. I tried that but it seems he could not be found immediately following a wind storm. Thats when Robert and I saved us $50 a month and maintained it ourselves from then on. But Im older, wiser, and tired now. Robert is a Junior and very involved with his world. Earlier this year we decided to rent a stall in a local Marina, but since my cancer diagnosis weve decided we wont be using the boat for the rest of the year, so we have trailered it next to the house, and will decide what to do when next season rolls around. Goodbye, old dock........
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 21:22:14 +0000
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