Out of Gas?

Out of Gas in Agua Verde?

To get to the tienda at Agua Verde you land on the beach (kayak or dinghy, doesn’t much matter) and then walk a short distance. One morning, Brenden and I took the dinghy to shore, and this was probably the first time we had done a beach landing in the dinghy just the two of us. Brenden isn’t as keen to driving the dinghy as Alex is. In fact, he’s admitted he doesn’t like driving because he doesn’t like landing it because he’s worried if he does it wrong, dad will yell at him.

So, that morning, maybe because it was just me, he agreed to be the chauffeur and take me to shore and we landed the dinghy without incident and made our shopping run. So far so good.  Then, when we got back to the dinghy, we pushed off from shore, and here’s where the fun started. It wouldn’t start. We both tried a couple times without success. So, I checked the gas can. Light and empty. I was mad. No, I was absolutely fuming. I could not believe we were out of gas! I radioed to let Tim know but he was unavailable so I talked to Marsha, and I’m sure she could even feel the daggers coming out of my eyes through the radio. Brenden knew right away how to get the oars in the water, but we were heading upwind and it would have been a very long row. Tim radioed back when there was still smoke coming out of my ears and asked if we were sure we were out of gas, because it feels empty when it’s not quite empty. OK, now I feel small. We tried a few more times to start it, and, of course, it started. So, we weren’t really out of gas, and all of my anger was mostly misplaced. However, I never take the dinghy anywhere on my own without checking the gas level myself anymore, so I learned that lesson almost the hard way.