I woke up at 4 AM to find no kitten. XO had climbed up on the boom, twisted his leash around the Dutchman a couple of times, and then either jumped or fallen off. The result was that he slipped his collar. A search of the boat yielded no kitty. I went on shore in hopes that he had jumped down on the dock and was near. No luck. I knew that there were places he could hide on Reboot where I would not find him, so I decided that I would just have to wait to see if he came out for food in the morning.
As I went out on deck once more I heard his cry. I thought it was from inside the back cabin, but soon realized that it was too loud and not coming from quite the correct direction. I looked over the side of Reboot and to my dismay there was XO, clinging to one of the mooring posts for dear life and crying. I got out a bucket on a rope and tried to scoop him up. The result was that he let go of the post and swam around the stern to another post. I was of course not fast enough to grab him as he went by. So fully dressed into the water I went, swam over to the other post and grabbed a very wet and scarred kitty. I swam back with him to the boat and plopped him up on the swim platform.
Net, I dried him off as best I could – thank goodness that the water in the Elizabeth River is fresh so I did not have to deal with salt – and then put him in kitty jail to dry off. I rinsed myself off with boat water and put on fresh clothing.
I had planned an early start to buddy boat up the dismal swamp route with a couple of other boats but I admit that I didn’t intend to get up this early!
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