(re-run)
Really, folks, you can't make this stuff up. My fisherman friend, we'll call him Pete, took a buddy and his boat and spent a day on the Delta, where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers meet Suisun Bay, which flows into San Francisco Bay and then the Pacific Ocean via San Pablo Bay.
After a so-so day of catching fish, Pete knew he had just enough gas to get back to the docks. But as he was tooling on back around 5:30 with his friend a safe six feet away from him in the boat since we are social distancing during the Covid-19 lockdown, Pete heard a barking dog. It was coming from another boat in the distance.
Pete and his buddy listened and heard human voices. They couldn't quite make out what they were saying. Then he distinctly heard someone call, "Help!"
Pete looked at his fuel tank and turned toward the dog and the voices. There was the boat, all right, but the only living thing on it was a small poodle, barking its head off. Two people were in the water.
Pete scanned the horizon. There was only his boat, the boat with the dog, and one other boat still out on the water. Everyone else had docked for the day.
The Delta water was 59 degrees on that April evening. The man and woman in the water sure looked happy to see Pete coming toward them.
"What happened?" Pete asked, but he could see that it would be better to pull them in first, and ask questions later. The woman looked exhausted.
The young guy in his mid-thirties climbed right in. He was as naked as a baby on his birthday. The woman also appeared to be nude.
"I am so embarrassed," she said holding onto the side of the boat. "I'm naked, too."
Pete's buddy threw Pete the dirty fish towel that they used to grab the flopping fish when they got one into the boat.
The young woman took it and held it to herself as best she could while Pete hauled her out of the water.
"You never saw two happier people," Pete said. "I drove them over to their boat and made sure they got back in okay before I headed to the docks."
One can imagine what had happened. If not, here's what the guy told Pete during their short time together. The couple had had some afternoon delight, the woman jumped into the river to wash off, and the current took her. The guy jumped it to get her, and then you know. They were both screwed (again).
Pete told me his rule of everyone having to wear a life vest on his boat at all times, no exceptions.
"They would've drowned if I hadn't come along," he said, "although the other boater arrived a minute after I handled it."
I wonder if the amorous couple will remember that the next time they decide to have a little fun on their boat in the middle of the Delta.
The dog was a life saver. Somebody give that poodle a biscuit!
Couldda Wouldda Didda
It wasn't a first date (I don't think), but it's one neither rescue party nor rescued will forget.
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