Its nice to think of a post ditch bag but really, I"d be happy to get there in my underwear. I'll worry about the "after being saved" if I make it that far.
It’s very stressful being released from the ER away from home, almost no communication (cell battery gone), walking only, and disoriented in a nutty, high energy tourist town on a weekend. Remember, my vision did not clear up until after 4 days of steroid treatment. Plus—the boat was still out there, unattended, for three nights, with nightly fog. No one to switch on the anchor light, or ring the bell, etc. I couldn’t go back aboard even if I might catch a ride back out there to the cove, and not an easy thing to arrange in the first place.
Eventually, SeaTow did bring the boat home to Long Beach and me insurance covered the tow. Bless ‘em! But this was a very unusual situation with the boat at anchor with no skipper aboard. SeaTow normally would refuse a tow like that (which they at first did). You need two boats on the site and at least three guys to get the anchor up and attach the tow w/o losing control of the boat. What if the windlass freezes? What if the anchor gets hung-up, etc.? What if the battery is dead? Now, a jump-start to boot!! Plus, there was a dingy with the outboard attached (fortunately up). So, they are very wary of such a job. The boat becomes at potentially greater risk of loss.
I had to handle much of the back and forth on the tow sitting in Avalon using a nearly dead cell phone. It was not going well; many obstacles, mostly to do with how the coves are administered, so I rode the Catalina Express home, the last one, on Sunday night, leaving the boat unresolved and at anchor.
On Monday with the corporate offices open on the east coast, and we could talk further, SeaTow (Vessel Assist) agreed to fetch the boat home and cover the tow. I’m very grateful.
But I still could not see normally and went to the neurologist that day as well.
