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Back when we lived in South Carolina and during a moment of insanity (disclaimer to South Carolinians: I don’t believe the two are related – but you never know), I bought a MacGregor 25, a 25-foot beauty of a sailboat very much like the one pictured here. But I’m telling you now, that boat is why I could never again wear white.

Sounds pretty weird, right? Well, here’s the thing.

When we bought it, Lake Hartwell (a fairly large reservoir) was pretty close by, so it was naturally the first place we planned to sail. Now, for this premier event I had gone all out: white shorts, white shirt, white boat shoes (I could ask you not to laugh, but I freely acknowledge it probably wouldn’t do any good). I’m tellin’ ya, I was it on a stick!

So, while pulling the boat up to the public ramp, I had nothing but high hopes for a wonderful day of sailing. But that’s when things started to, er, diverge (which is fancy way of saying you go your way and I’ll go mine) a bit from expectations.

You see, it turned out there had been a long period of drought in the region (at this point, nearly three years). As a result, all of the local lakes were at very low levels, especially Hartwell. Uh, make that very, very low. In fact, most of the public boat ramps were no longer actually in the water. (It also explained why we were pretty much alone that day.)

Anyway, after some searching, we finally found one we could use. After raising the mast, securing the fittings, swabbing the decks, and shivering me timbers, it was finally sitting in the water, ready for our very first adventure on the water. The big moment I’d been waiting for had finally arrived! Except – well, except I had to get the boat out of the ramp area and over to the dock first.

Sounds a lot easier than it actually was, lemme tell ya. The first issue was the discovery that the gas tank had been left at home. Ah, well, no big deal, right? I mean, after all, it’s a sailboat. Who needs a motor? But it did bring up another, er, challenge.

The ramp and docks were separated by about 200 yards, so now the question before the jury was, how to move the boat from point A (the ramp) to point B (the dock). It wasn’t much in terms of distance, but since we couldn’t use the motor, it required some thought (sound of grinding gears). Hey, I’m an engineer, right? I can do this (I said with misplaced confidence).

After tying a long rope to the bow (that’s the pointy part in the front), I gave it a mighty shove in the general direction of the dock (with Mrs. MZM on board, navigating), grabbed the rope, hopped off the ramp, and started pulling the boat along the shoreline. So far, so good, right?

Unfortunately, the shore, which was actually just recently-exposed lake-bottom sludge, wasn’t the greatest surface to walk on, and I found myself sinking further and further into it with each step. Also, the limited length of rope meant I couldn’t get further up the bank on firmer footing. So I hadn’t gone more than 100 feet or so when, with no warning at all, I suddenly sank right up to my nether regions!

OK, now what? The boat (with Mrs. MZM aboard helplessly watching) was slowly floating away from me (luckily in the right direction), but here I was, completely stuck! The suction was so strong I simply could not get free. Even worse, the more I struggled, the more I sank in; now I was now waist-deep. (I had visions of old Tarzan movies, where a fall into quicksand meant you were basically done for.) I’m thinkin’ to myself, this is probably the craziest situation I’ve ever gotten myself into.

Eventually the boat reached the dock; Mrs. MZM tied it off and ran around to help get me out. In a scene that could have come right out of an Indiana Jones movie, she found a long stick up on the bank and, with considerable grunting, huffing and puffing (I was up to my chest at this point, but no longer sinking further) finally managed to get me out of danger and onto firmer ground. Amazingly, I only lost one shoe (luckily not the shorts – although it was touch and go for a few minutes) in the process.

Hours later, once everything was secured and we managed to catch our breath again, we had to start laughing. See, this region of the country has what is known as red clay soil; it’s a very bright terra cotta color. The thing is, red clay particles are so fine that once they get into your clothes, it’s virtually impossible to get the stains out.

So I had now become the proud wearer of a permanently-stained red shirt, shorts and one red shoe. And just to round things off, my skin was stained red, too. It was pretty hilarious (now that it was over, of course), but I’ll tell ya; for as long as I owned that boat (alas, she’s gone on to other ownership), I never forgot the gas tank again!

Oh, and I never wore an all-white outfit again, either. The memories are just too… painful.

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