The Diana-A Family Boat Story

Summer days were the best days, because my summer memories are best.

 Summer Prompt 3: Tell a favorite boat story.

My mom likes the story about the first boat she and dad owned. It has become legend.

Diana and Bill were a young married couple in 1957. Bill had to report to army boot camp as part of mandatory service. Instead of living on base, they took a little apartment nearby a boat basin. Within a few days, Bill found a small boat with a big engine problem. Confident that he could make it work, Bill bought the boat and named it Diana. 

The engine was replaced with a car motor Bill acquired. Bill clamped hoses, connected wires, scraped spark plugs and charged batteries. Sunday boat rides were pleasant enough heading out the Chesapeake Bay, but ended with a tow into port. Bill spent his spare afternoons tightening, replacing, and adjusting while wife Diana handed him tools. 

By the end of the summer, Diana, the wife, was seven months pregnant. With the army stint satisfied, it was time to go home. Bill knew Diana, both the boat and wife, were seaworthy enough to travel to Long Island. Won’t the family be surprised to see them putter up the canal to the Country House? The trip would take two days. A friend agreed to drive their car to Long Island and arrive at the Country House three days after they left.   

Bill packed tools and spare parts. Wife Diana made sandwiches, bagged fruit, and filled thermoses with tea. Giddy with excitement, they chugged up the Chesapeake through the Chesapeake-Delaware canal and toward Cape May. They had to slow down a few times during onboard repairs. While Diana, the wife, steered through the channels, Bill banged on something to relieve the cause of smoke trailing behind the boat.

The next day the ocean rolled, but Diana, the boat, remained steady and in sight of land. Suddenly, an enormous creature surfaced too close to the boat. Bill thought it was a whale that could easily topple the little vessel. He grabbed his pregnant wife and pulled her off the top of the cuddy cabin to safety. Unfortunately, she was sitting on the navigation chart. It flew away with the wind and melted into the ocean. They had to stop at a marina to refuel and adjust something on the engine. The attendant did not have navigation charts, but he gladly gave them a Sinclair Gasoline road map. 

Day three, was windy and rough. The little boat rode the swells up and down. Bill stayed on course, not pushing the finicky engine into a stall. Wife Diana used the road map to identify the coastal landmarks. Thankfully, they got through Fire Island Inlet and were now in familiar bays and maybe forty minutes from home. Diana, the wife, decided they should freshen up before making their surprise entrance into the canal. They stopped in a quiet cove. Diana brushed out her long thick hair and put on a dry maternity dress. Bill scrubbed the grease off his hands as best he could and changed his shirt. 

In the meantime, the friend who drove Bill and Diana’s car to Long Island arrived at the Country House. As usual, the Country House was filled with aunts, uncles, cousins enjoying the company and summer day out of the city. Bill’s mother, Mary, greeted the friend at the door.

“Bill is in Maryland,” she said.

The friend had to explain that the couple were cruising to the Country House in a boat that routinely needed a tow to port. He expected them to land a day ago. The poor friend had to answer a deluge of questions and exclamations. Mary, worried for her son, daughter-in-law and grandbaby-to-be, ordered the family to watch for them from the canal and beach.  

By the time Diana, the boat, chugged into the canal (trailing gray smoke), the relatives had lined the edges calling out to them “What were you thinking? Why are you so late! You worry your mother!”

It wasn’t the cheery homecoming Bill and Diana expected. Mary whacked her son with a damp dish towel. After a scathing scolding, everyone hugged and kissed the weary travelers.  

Diana, the boat, became the family boat for a few seasons. She was the first boat I rode on a cool October day. 

This is one of my favorite family boat stories. Do you have one to share? Stay tuned for more of my summer prompts stories. 

Enjoy ❤️.   Like 👍.  Share 😊. 

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