Last weekend proved to be a “class A” Ziggy caper! My copilot for the long weekend, Jeff is a gung ho crazy man like myself and this always spells trouble if there is not a third party along to pull on our reins and slow us down.

The festivities started shortly after we arrived from work. After a few brews and a large Mexican dinner delivered to the boat we loaded the dingy with a large cooler of beer and a small can of gas and went for a ride. It was around 53 degrees so the police would be home due to the lack of boaters to harass and we could enjoy a nice easy ride down the river while sipping a beer or two. Or so was the plan! We got to the end of the Back River and seeing the St. Clair River (very large river connecting Lake Huron with Lake Erie) was calm we motored out into the middle and shut off our engine and lights and started drifting down stream. The stars were shining bright and the beer was cold. With the help of a little brandy the air felt warm. We had to start up the motor and come back over to the American side a few times to dodge the freighters but it was a relaxing “Huckleberry Finn” kinda night. The current is very fast and we soon found ourselves in St. Clair a lot of miles from home and started back up river on what would be a sveral hour ride on a few hours of gas. Then suddenly a light shot from the sky and it was daylight!! Until I saw the flashing blue lights on each side of the “sun”. Faster than you can say “cheese it, it’s the cops” the Coast Guard had us. The gig was up. The sight of two 6’4”-265lbs guys in a 9ft -5hp dingy 12 miles from home at 1:00am was more than these armed kids could understand. After following fingers, counting backwards, doing alphabets, putting my left foot out and doing the hokypoky etc.We were plucked from the dingy into the CG boat for further interrogation. After running my boat registration twice and my license once, they were left with only one ace to play, the breathalyzer. Theory being only a drunken idiot would pull a stunt like this! With fingers crossed I blew a 0.03! I was free to pillage again!!! Proving an idiot didn’t have to be drunk to do something this wild (read stupid). Not willing to turn us out they pulled my dingy into the back of the boat for the ride back to Pt. Huron. Not a single empty beer can rattled loose from under the cooler or made a noise the whole way back. With twin 160hp outboards humming we were back on the Black River in a half an hour. Turned loose we soon cracked a celebration beer and cruised back to the yacht club with ear to ear grins from all the adventure....and we still had the whole 3 day weekend ahead of us!