Tom Francis wrote in
:

Been there, done that.

The shock is..."invigorating"... :)



We were having a little party on "Lionheart", about 8 of us. One of the
neighbors partying with us wanted more of his favorite libation so went
to his boat for a refill as Lionheart's larder wasn't up to his
specifications.

Everyone was quite drunk and there were a couple of young females that
distracted us so noone noticed that Lloyd didn't come back in a timely
manner.

Eventually, he returned, drink in hand in DIFFERENT CLOTHES. I asked him
what happened and he told us he was taking a leak off the dock, slipped
on a line and fell in. Unable to pull himself out of the drink, drunk as
he was, he decided to swim around to one of the other neighbor's swim
platform on his Grand Banks 42 trawler, hauled himself out and went to
his boat. Soaked, of course, he changed clothes, filled his glass and
returned to the party as if nothing had happened.

Noone thought much of it, drunk as we all were, but the next morning we
got talking about it and he could have drown, in his condition. That
wouldn't have been good.....

My captain has a full wood shop in his basement and loves to play with
all the power toys. So, the next time I went to the boat a couple weeks
later, there mounted on the main dock, is this custom made dock boarding
ladder, teak of course, with the custom made stainless plaque that said,
"Lloyd's Ladder"....so he could more easily retrieve himself, next time,
without disturbing the party....(c;

If you could only have that kind of neighborhood at home, life would be
just grand....