That Time

It’s that time again...time to put away our lakeside marina for the summer. There’s a practiced order to this, which has become sort of a fine art around here.

First step: the ski boat is pulled from the water to sit on its snazzy blue trailer, and is cleaned, winterized, and buttoned up with a matching blue cover.  The two of us handled this job over a couple of days this past week.  (Side note…The outside of its hull looked like it had been used as an easel for preschoolers with black markers – no kidding.  It was covered with smudgy marks, the result of rubbing against tire bumpers, and required generous elbow grease from both of us.  In the end it cleaned up pretty well).

Next step: the Hobie (catamaran) lift is pulled up on shore with the help of a winch.  Then the Hobie itself (winch again) and the ski boat lift (yup, winch a third time). Finally the narrower “U” portion of pier is unbolted, and sections are floated to shore, pulled out by hand, and stacked.  That all happened today with help from our son and grandson in an heroic team effort.  They were rewarded by the discovery of quite a few more jelly-like “blobs,” strange filter-feeding organisms (animal, not plant) that were new to our lake this year. Ewwww...cool!

Final step: sometime the week of September 21^st it will be time for the pontoon boat and fishing boat to come ashore, then the fishing boat lift, and finally the main pier.  But only after my husband’s annual fall fishing trip with his fishing buddies on the weekend of the 19^th – a three-man event that’s been happening since 1982, a final highlight to close out the season.

Then, and only then, will we be done for another year!