Last year about this time I picked up a guy (older than me!) about 7 miles down the beach who had bogged his ATV down 15 miles farther down, and was about done-in walking back.
10 days or so ago I met a guy (not much younger than me!) a mile farther down the beach than the last guy. He said he'd bogged out down at Arctic Circle- some 35 miles farther down the beach, and had been walking for two days. He asked for water, which I had. He was looking a little peaked, so I also gave him a couple breakfast bars, a Snickers, and a ride back to town.
Last night I was all nekkid and climbing into bed when I saw Northwest Aviation's floatplane on the lagoon out the bedroom window.
"Cool", I thought, "they just brought in some hunters from camp". But the prop wasn't moving, and I didn't see anyone in the cabin. Went out to the living room and binoced the plane. No visible pepe in the cabin- and the plane was slowly drifting backward, motor into the wind.
I called 911, then on their advice, the radio station (no answer). Ran next door to Lew Pagel, Kotzebue's Finest (and only) Chiropracter. We jumped into his boat moored 30 yards out back, and zipped down to the plane, now half way down the lagoon. Off the front of the left float there was a dragging line which I reeled in to find a 4 foot, 2" pipe, (picket turned sea anchor) on the end of the 20 foot rope. Matching rope on the right pontoon, no pipe, so I tied them together as a bridal and hitched my 10 foot dog leash to it (only thing handy at quick notice!
), and Lew put a tow on it.
Wasn't working well, so we went to plan B, coming up alongside the left float, which had a slack-rope attached to fore and aft cleats. Using that to hold the plane alongside, we begin to tow it into the lower lagoon launch place, which we had just drifted past, a half mile below where the plane came loose just above our residences. There were flashing cop lights there and they had been hailing us on the bull-horn, but we couldn't understand... About half way in, a coming-back-from-camp boat came thru under Second Bridge (we are clever in our naming of places here...) , beached, then took on someone at the landing, and came back out. The pilot. Hence the bull-horn.. Cops also had both my and Lew's cell numbers, but we had cleverly left the phones in our houses....
Pilot boarded the plane, dressed the loose lines and got into the cabin as we eased off a bit on standby. The way this guy's day was going.... but the engine fired right up, no sweat. Still had 300-400 yards of drift to the lee-shore.
End of excitement.
Likely would have been more excitement out there had I not taken the time to get (sort-of) dressed before going over to Lew's. No socks, underwear, or shirt, just boots, jeans and a medium weight rain-proof hunting jacket.
Might have been a bit uncomfortable nekkid in that cold rain and light wind, too....
Anyone know the salvage value on a 172 or 180? I don't know my planes, much...
