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Bear Lake Boating

This weekend seven of us drove up to Bear Lake and rented a boat. We just swam in the Caribbean-like turquoise blue lake and, later, we all tried to wakeboard. It was fun.

Probably the "highlight" of the day, however, was when the wind picked up and the weather started to get a little sketchy. At the time, British Dave was trying to wakeboard, but the changing weather and the bigger waves made he and/or the boat drift so far away from one another other that it made his wakeboarding attempts very difficult. Eventually, we called Dave back to the boat, and we started off back towards the shore.

We were battling two to three foot waves as we headed back to shore. Before we could get there, though, the boat suddenly took on a ton of water--about three waves worth before it stopped. We had to empty the coolers to bail about a foot of water out of the boat. Then, after we started back toward shore when we were sure the boat wouldn't sink, the engine died because it had gotten flooded. The weather wasn't improving, and a boat we had flagged down for help left us. We were stuck in the middle of Bear Lake with the weather getting worse.

Finally, another (bigger) boat came out to pull us back to shore. About 5 minutes after they started towing us, though, our tow rope broke. Thankfully, they had another one, and we made it back to shore safely. Crazy!