In college, our SCUBA club held an annual Memorial Day Weekend dive trip to Lake George, NY. We’d reserve some campsites on one of the islands, and rent a boat. It was three days of young adults diving, drinking and the occasional sexual liaison, or attempt at same  (the women laughingly said the guys had “gotten too much fresh air” as they fended us off).

We'd not gotten halfway when the motor started to choke and sputter. A few minutes after that, the storm was upon us.

On a Friday afternoon on one of these outings, I was one of three students tasked with picking up the boat at the marina. We piled our gear into the small outboard-powered runabout, and headed out into the lake, south towards a stretch of water called The Narrows, where we’d meet the rest of our merry band and ferry everyone onto our island. We’d used my credit card to rent the boat, so I got to drive. As we left the dock, we noticed that the sky to the northwest was looking very grim; piles of dark clouds with that faint greenish tinge that means big thunderstorms. We should have returned to the marina to wait it out, but we thought we had time, and besides, when you have not yet hit twenty-one, you’re invincible.

We’d not gotten halfway when the motor started to choke and sputter. A few minutes after that, the storm was upon us.

The temperature fell rapidly. Icy rain like bullets, mixed with small hailstones, pelted us, soaked us. Lake George, placid a few minutes ago, became a frenzied inland sea of white-topped waves coming at us from all directions as they reflected back from the shores, breaking over the bow and drenching us with very cold lake water.  The wind increased by the minute, blowing the whitecaps off the wave crests, a phenomenon known as “white horses.” In the small open boat, clad only in T-shirts and jeans, we began to shiver. Hypothermia was minutes away.  The engine popped and died several times, but fortunately, always restarted. We also noticed that there was a LOT of water in the boat. It seemed more than rain and waves could account for. A quick look under the bow deck revealed that it was parting company with the hull. Waves that should have been directed away were jetting into the boat through the gap.

We were sinking.

The two who weren’t steering grabbed fins from their gear bags and started bailing. We wanted to head for shore, for shelter from the wind, or even to beach the boat, but heading anywhere but into the wind would have been fatal, and that necessity forced us farther out into the lake. We didn’t say it, being full of bravado and all, but we  realized that we were in serious trouble.

Several years later we saw, far up the lake to the north, one other boat, a large stern-drive cruiser. It looked to be heading across the lake to the eastern shore. One of the things we were carrying was our club banner, a big red and white dive flag with “FDU Scuba Club” appliqued upon it. I recall that it was Andy who had the idea to start waving it in hopes of attracting their attention.

The sight of that boat making a hard turn to starboard and heading for us at top speed, white bow wave flying, is still one of the loveliest things I have seen.

It was a big, fast, expensive boat. Soon the family who owned it, father, mother and a couple of kids, had taken our defective little runabout boat in tow and bundled us inside the warm cabin, supplying towels and blankets. And hot chocolate.

The sun had returned  when we arrived at our destination. The lake was nearly flat again, revealing no hint of the violence it had shown us less than an hour before. Our friends were all at the dock, anxious. The boat owner untied our runabout, with us aboard, shouting to our friends ashore to be nice to us, we’d had a bad time out there. We wanted to collect some money to reward him, but he’d have none of it. It was, he said, merely what any sailor should do.

Epilogue: The next morning we sailed the boat, sputtering and dying, back to the marina to have a chat with the owner. He was not cooperative at first. He had no other small rentals left on that Holiday weekend. I am not sure if it was the presence of three irate college age divers (one of them – not me – an obvious body builder), the oversize knives dangling from our belts, or our repeated use of terms like “park rangers,” “police, “criminal negligence” and “reporters,” but when we returned to the island, it was in a 25′ ski boat with twin outboards, a forward cabin and a platform on the stern for climbing back on board. And it didn’t cost us one extra dime.