WANTED

You know how many marinas there are in the Sacramento Delta?  A lot, let me tell you.  And I’ve called nearly every one in search of our elusive, inexpensive junked, but still floating, 20 foot-or-so pontoon boat.  A few leads which I’m following up on.

Kai and I also hung a flier up in a few delta towns when we were up there. 

Surprisingly, we got a response within a few days from a guy named Chris in Walnut Grove.  “I live on a little harbor.  The woman who owns it is like 90 something and she’s going crazy.  The marina’s falling apart.  There a boat in the harbor, just sitting there for years, sounds like what you are looking for.”  It took me a bit to understand Chris.  He seemed like a nice guy, a lot like the other folks we met in the area, lonely, talkative, staggeringly inarticulate.

“I don’t know if it’s a pontoon boat, but it’s sinking on one side.  So it’s probably a pontoon boat, right?”  I had to think through this logic a little bit.  One of the reasons we are interested in a pontoon boat is that it is less likely to sink. 

“This boat’s got stuff in it.  A fridge, held up with a rope.  It got coats in there, like nice ones.  And other stuff.”  I wondered that the locals had not already stripped this abandoned boat full of nice coats.

I asked Chris if he could send me a picture of this boat.  “You know, I’m technology illiterate.  My phone’s got a camera, but I don’t know know how to use the goddamned thing.  Technology, man, I just don’t know it.”

Chris went on, “To tell the truth, you don’t want this boat.  It’s sinking on one side.  But it’s just sitting here.  And free’s a good price, right?  Am I right?  You know, who knows?  You could haul this thing out and do us a favor before it sinks.”

As dubious as it sounds, we’ll probably take a look at it next time we go up there.  If it hasn’t already settled to the bottom of the Sacramento River.  As Chris says, who knows?

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