When Things go Off the Transom

Somedays things just go your way. It had been a great couple of days…celebrating our birthdays, having the election party, great cool weather on the river.
Today Michael decided to go to town with our launcha. While I was sitting in the resturant waiting for my Spanish class to begin  Jim came up to me and said," I just saw Michael on the river and there wasn’t an outboard on the back of the laucha."  This was not good news.
Michael and Tom rowed up to the dock and sure enough there was no outboard on the back of the launcha. To say the least I was not happy and neither was Michael. It seems that they were hit by a large under water wave which tore the outboard from the transom of the launcha. Michael was lucky that he arm wasn’t broken.
Now two Guatemalan fishermen saw what happened and agreed to help find the outboard. Now this is a deep part of the river. At least twelve meters deep. They tried with the help of Inez and Fito. No luck. They broke for lunch. When they returned after lunch the two fishermen were dragging the bottom of the river with their net. Much to our amazement at around 3:30pm they showed up with the motor. It was cleaned up and running. The cost Q1800. A small price to pay.
We now have it secured with more than the standard two clamps. The moral of the story. Make sure that your outboard is secured to the transom. A good outboard is a horrible thing to waste.