This story is about being run over, not by a car or other wheeled vehicle, it’s about being run over by a boat. Let me go back to the beginning of this story. There was a lady who lost her husband in a divorce. But she got the boat, a nice sailboat about 40 feet in length. And she made up her mind that she was going to sail down to the Exumas this year, even without her husband. She had to hire a licensed captain. She found one willing to take the trip for a few months and return to the Jersey Shore. He said that he was an alcoholic and had to go to the AA meetings wherever they were. 

We met them in Nassau, and we connected with them. Their itinerary was like ours. Her captain was a nice guy, clean cut, well shaven, and personable. He was a good sailor, and he had a good boat, he knew his stuff and we liked both of them. Let’s call him Captain Joe. We shared plans and told them that we were going to go to Georgetown, Exumas. And she said that they had the same idea. Georgetown is far south of Nassau, and there are several Cays that you go by as you head south. Georgetown is noted for 3 hurricane holes. These are well protected areas with up to 360° protection from the wind. This is where most of the boats go. Our plan was to continue to the Georgetown Yacht Club, which really isn’t a Yacht Club. It’s just a place to anchor. And everybody who knows about the place tells other boaters that is not worth going there. There’s not much beach, the entrance is tricky and shallow, and it’s just not welcoming. There are no buildings there. And fewer boats. That’s why we were heading there. 

We’ve never been in the Exumas when we didn’t see at least one boat sink. There are absolutely no markings in the area. We ran into a problem on the way down because we were using the Yachtsman’s Guide, and this says you want to line up the pink house up with the blue house and then continue on a magnetic heading of 045 degrees. We couldn’t find the houses. They must have painted one of them. Anyway, we worked our way in, avoiding the coral heads and slipped into the town of Georgetown. Then we continued south and made a right turn into our anchorage. We like this area. It is a little bit south of Georgetown, but you can still get there by dingy. At 5pm everybody brings out their homemade conk horn and starts blowing. This means happy hour on the beach. I don’t think we missed a single one. Anyway, back to the story. We took our dingy into Georgetown and we ran across Captain Joe. He was the commercial captain who was running the boat for our lady friend. He said that he came into town last night to go to an AA meeting. After the meeting was over it was quite dark, in fact, pitch black. As he was leaving to go back to his boat, he heard the engines start on another boat, an inboard, powerful, with two engines, and no lights. They make their runs back to the states with drugs and no lights. He had a flashlight, and he shined it in the direction of the sound, but it was too late because the boat ran right over him. I said you’re kidding. He said, “No I’m not kidding. Here look at my slicker (a long loose oilskin rain jacket)”.  It had skid marks from the bottom of the boat as it ran over him. He said “I just stopped, I was in my inflatable and this thing just tore off and came right at me. Before I even knew what was happening this boat was gone. And there’s the marks on my slicker.”  I could not believe it. I said, are you hurt do we need to take you to a hospital or something?  He said “no, no. I’m fine, I ducked down real low, and I was in the inflatable.” I said wow what a story. Who would believe this? 

I guess we stayed about four months down in the area. The water is just magnificent, I mean you can see 30 feet down with no problems at all. We got our fill of bananas, coconuts, sunshine, and lobsters, time to go.  

We anchored out on the flats, got a good night’s sleep, and arrived in Florida just after the sun was up. After we cleared customs, we decided to go up the waterway because we wanted to stop in Savannah and see our friend. We checked into the Savannah Marina and lo and behold the dock master is the captain we met down in the Exumas. He was the captain of the lady’s boat and now he was dockmaster here in Savannah. We shared some good times while talking about boats. Eventually, we got to the incident that he had when he was down in Georgetown. Before I knew it, he got up, went into his closet, opened it up and pulled out his slicker that had skid marks from the boat on the back of it. I couldn’t believe it. He brought it with him. He had survived being run over by a boat and it didn’t even put a hole in the slicker. But there it was, and here we are, talking about it.  And that’s how to get run over by a boat and survive.