Man overboard!

As a reward for the extra work my team has been putting into a recent project, my company gave nine of us the afternoon off last Thursday to take a boat ride down to Chesapeake City, MD (via the Delaware River and C&D canal). We got there around mid-afternoon and proceeded to eat fresh crabs and drink beer at The Tap Room for 3 hours. It was a little before sunset when we pushed off for the ride home. That's when the day got interesting -- our boat stalled when we were about a third of the way back, and it didn't start again. A thick fog rolled in just as the sun sank, completely engulfing us. The next thing we knew we were surrounded on three sides by blackness. On the fourth was a river dredger the length of a cruise ship that was slowly swinging back and forth, to deepen the canal. It provided hazy light as we drifted dangerously closer to it before our anchor finally took effect in the 50-feet deep water. Once secure, we tried to arrange for a tow, hoping for one that would bring us all the way back to the landing from which we left. Over two hours of bobbing in place later the Coast Guard found us, with a little help from their GPS. They had called off our towboat because of the extremely poor visibility and brought us to the nearest landing themselves with only a computer screen to show them where to go. On the dock, as were waving good-bye and thanking the Coast Guard, one still-intoxicated member from our group started flailing his arms and reaching out to nothing as he fell backward into the water. "Man overboard!" yelled someone from the Coast Guard crew. Don't worry, folks, it turned out to be only three feet of water into which he was submerged. But that didn't stop everybody from panicking at first. The ex-lifeguard (current software quality assurance analyst) with us was ready to jump into the water to save the guy. Instead he dropped to his stomach and reached an arm out with a shout of "DOUG, I GOT YOU!!" Yes, it was easily the most hilarious moment of the day.

A crowded mini-van ride later we were returned to our cars in Port of Wilmington. We all managed to survive the reward trip. The technical problems and tardiness of our delivery were actually well representative of the project for which we were being rewarded. I didn't expect anything less.