Friday Night Excitement on Wolverine Lake

Monique and I went for a Friday night pontoon cruise yesterday. We knew there was a storm coming in fairly soon, but figured we had time for a couple of laps.

Needless to say, it was quite exciting when the tornado sirens went off while we were still quite a way from our dock. And while dozens of other boats hit their accelerators and sped home to safety, the ol' Stealth Pontoon continued at a rather stately speed, despite my having turned our little tolling motor all the way up to ten. (Sorry Spinal Tap fans, but there is no "11" speed rating on our boat.)

As we putted ever so slowly back to dock, the sirens kept screaming and lightning began to march in from the West, slowly progressing towards the far end of the lake. The last several hundred yards were rather lonely out there, with everybody else having long since docked and headed for shelter.

Would we make it? Were we lost at sea?

Well, yeah, since I'm typing up this blog post today, I guess the suspense is gone. But it was all rather thrilling last night.

Anyway, we pulled into dock at a rather precipitous speed, and our neighbor Mike helped us tie up. Then we covered the console and zipped into the house, beating the real onslaught of the storm by a good three or four minutes. It was a dandy storm, too. There was no tornado (thank goodness) but winds up to 70 mph that knocked down quite a few trees around us and knocked out the power in quite a few places, and left our lawn litered with twigs, branches, and overturned lawn furniture.

Why do I relate this story? I just want to point out that while some have questioned the excitement level of a pontoon boat with a maximum speed of about two miles per hour, life aboard the Stealth Pontoon can at times be a truly thrilling voyage in extreme pontooning.