Cat Rescue (Day 094)

LAY DAY: Boot Key Harbor, Mooring Ball L-10 MM1195

Lat/ Long: 24 42 32N 81 05 57W

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Weather: Partly cloudy; low mid 60s high 70; N wind 20+ knots although it dropped to 12 to 15 for two hours in the early afternoon; light chop in the harbor

Comment: It was another one of those lazy days. The crew of SUNSHINE spent most of the time aboard although we did go to shore for an hour or so, just to walk around. Luckily, the wind had calmed a bit so we didn’t get splashed while going to or coming back from shore.

It was a cool, windy morning. The wind was screaming through the rigging. I was in the cockpit sipping a cup of brew and Anna Marie was in the cabin. The radio was on and I was having a good time listening to the music and watching the comings and goings of the myriad dinghies that were going to and fro.

I began working on a project when I thought I heard voices. It sounded like shouting and it was odd I thought that I would hear people above the sounds of the wind in the rigging. I dismissed the idea, thinking that it was the wind playing tricks on my ears. But the shouts continued. After about a minute or two, I poked my head up to see people on two neighboring boats (one directly off our bow and the other on our port side) apparently shouting at each other. The person on the boat off our bow grabbed a boat hook and tried poking it into the water. The person on the boat to our port side jumped into his dinghy.

Anna Marie came to see what the commotion was and brought the binoculars so we could get a better view. Apparently something was in the water. With the binocs, I could see that it was a cat and the person on the boat off our bow was trying to reach it with a boat hook. He could just barely do so, but there was no way he could get it out of the water. The guy to our port was underway in the dinghy. With a large fishing net in hand, he motored over to the cat and scooped it up.

It seems that the cat did not belong to the folks on the boat off our bow. It had apparently fallen off a boat further in front of us and was drifting toward us. The guy in the dinghy went from boat to boat trying to find the cat’s owner. Many boaters had already gone ashore, making his task that much more difficult. Finally, he gave the cat to people on a boat that was two boats in front of the spot where the cat was rescued.