Bonnies Big Swim

One day I was called to rescue a broken down boat drifting about 150 metres from the boat ramp in our small seaside village. It was only a small open boat and I could see a man in some sort of uniform on board. I launched my rescue boat and with Bonnie, my faithful old Kelpie/ Collie dog on board I motored out to rescue this unknown character. As I approached I could see that he was a Government Fisheries and Wildlife officer. He had a boat full of documents and papers including some maps and he must have been doing some sort of inspections of shoreline etc. The starter rope had broken on the outboard and he was gradually drifting away from the shore. I pulled up alongside and he threw me a rope and I started heading back to shore. The lake was quite calm and Bonnie took up her usual position standing up right on the tip of the bow of the boat. (The front or pointy end !). We were about 100 metres from shore and some bloke in a speedboat cut through between our boats and the shore. This created quite a large wake (wave) and I could see the wave rapidly approaching us. Being a small boat such a wave was perfectly safe but they always chucked the boat around a bit as you broke through them. Well there are some things that you cannot tell a dog and warning Bonnie of a wave was out of the question. I steered the boat as well as I could through the wave but the sudden bump knocked Bonnie clean into the water. She disappeared under the waves and appeared suddenly swimming madly. There was no danger as she was an excellent swimmer so I changed course a little bit and tried to grab her as I drifted past. She was a bit far out of reach so the smartly uniformed man in the boat under tow called out that he would grab her as he went past. He managed to grab her collar and hauled her into his boat. Well any dog lover reading this will well know what the first thing that a dog does when it has been for a swim. Well Bonnie shook with all her might, she then proceeded to race around his boat, to my horror she raced all over his maps and documents while continually shaking water everywhere. It was only a small boat and I could see the now very wet Fisheries officer madly grasping at and trying to save all his papers from the water. When we arrived back at the little jetty I could see that the man was furious. His previously neat grey suit was all wet and his papers all stuck together. I grabbed Bonnie and put her in my van, water everywhere, The fisheries man had his boat trailer there so I made some excuse to escape and certainly did not mention any payment for the rescue. I quickly tied my small boat to the jetty and drove off. I have to confess to laughing then and giving Bonnie a pat, I told her that she was a good dog and that she had brightened up an otherwise rather dull day.