Although we got the dock and boatlift in over a month ago, neither monstrosity has has been “sitting” properly on the lake bottom. One corner of the dock would dip frighteningly when stepped on and the boat lift was too far from the shore, requiring a tremendous amount of wheel cranking to get it into or out of the water. I finally decided I’d had enough of my family’s rickety death marina.

A neighbor was asked to come over with his ATV which has a powerful winch on the front of it. I grabbed a mask, snorkel and long metal pipe for leverage, jumped into the lake and attached the cable to the frame of the lift. With some difficulty, and several dives down to clear away rocks, we managed to maneuver the lift closer to the shore and lined up perfectly with the dock. After the repositioning I discovered in no uncertain terms that my lung capacity is not what it used to be as I dove down to the bottom multiple times to rearrange rocks, stabilize and level the four lift posts.

Once the lift was squared away, I went back underwater and swam into the dark area underneath the dock before jamming a nice big, flat rock under the leg that tended to dip. While I was down there, I gathered up some bottle caps, a thermometer and an old boat bumper that had been resting in peace for gosh knows how long. After that, I dried off by screwing some extra rubber trim onto a bare section of dock edge and relocating a cleat that had been in an inconvenient spot. So now when we moor the boat without putting it into the lift the cleats are perfectly lined up with the bow and stern lines. Listen to me, eh? Pretty soon I’ll have a parrot perched on my shoulder.

The most amazing thing about the whole procedure were the staggering number of fish who turned out to watch/lend their support. Everytime I came up for air and then dove back down to where I’d just been 15 seconds or so before, there’d be a group of curious fish hovering around the spot where I’d just been meddling with their world. Big fish, little fish swimming in the water (this is beginning to sound like a PJ Harvey song)… perch, bass, sunfish – they were fearless and it’s a sight I’ll be returning to soon, possibly with additional masked intruders.

Sully and Jim – y’all need to get up here this summer because the fishin’ must be exceptional. Call me the dock doc.