re: Boat launch comedy

Not a launch story, but still dumb on our part. Senior year of highshool we'd gotten into throwing big parties on the islands at the mouth of the Pascagoula River (that big marsh you see on I10 headed to Mobile.) We had a 24ft party barge and a bayboat all with removable gas tanks, that we used to shuttle 30 or so people two miles from the boat launch to the island. After a bunch of trips, all the gas tanks are running low and we know we need to fill them, but we keep partying and let it get late. Around 1am, one buddy decides he's gonna take the party barge to go get the tanks filled. Bad idea all around.

Thirty minutes later, we get the call that he's broke down, with every single gas tank we had on his boat. There's only one thing we can do, in our minds, and it damn sure ain't to call pops. Me and two guys start pushing the bay boat through he marsh, in the dark, were we shine gators to this day.

About daylight and a mile later, we see him. He's at the mouth of a heavily used navigation channel as it feeds to the bay, 1000 yards on the other side from us. We push the boat all the way across the channel in what felt like 10 ft seas. We get there and he looks like he's just been rescued from a Chinese prison. Hook up the tank to our boat, tow him in, and mcdonalds breakfast never tasted so good.