It's been pretty quiet at the marina this week. The weather has been warm and sunny and uneventful. All that changed last evening. First, my sister called to say that the offer on my Dad's house was going to fall through due to a very low appraisal. Oh well. However, I then called our good friends and ex-realtors, Jan and Craig to get their opinion on a couple of issues with the contract. During the conversation, Jan asked how the animals were doing and I replied that all were well. I even bragged about how well the cats were doing at staying on the boat. They have been doing so well that we've gotten a little lax about leaving the boat open at night figuring that even if they did get off, the gate to the dock is closed and they'd be trapped on the dock.
After I talked to Jan, I called my sister back and then settled down to do a little knitting. I heard a strange cry outside and first thinking it was a night heron I ignored it. Then I realized it was a cat. Then I realized Tali was not on board. I flew out the companionway calling her and saw that there was a bit of a commotion going on two finger piers over. At first I figured Tali was scrapping with another cat, then I heard, "She's in the water!" I called for Jim to get the Cat Retrieval System i.e. crab net and ran over to the other dock. Poor little Tali was clinging to a piling bawling her eyes out. It was the most pathetic sound I've ever heard. She was scared to death. Jim netted her in quick order and hoisted her up to dry land. We are on a fixed dock and it is fairly high above the water. She was shaking like a leaf but unharmed and unfortunately we had to add insult to injury by rinsing her off. Licking off all of that salt water would not have been nice.
This morning I heard the rest of the story. The people two boats over were peacefully reading in their salon when they felt "someone" step on the boat and walk quickly around. Thinking an intruder, they went for their gun and cut off all of the lights. Shortly they heard what they thought was a fish jump and then something bumping against the hull. Their curiosity luckily got the best of them, they went out with a flashlight, I don't know about the gun, and that's when they saw Tali silently clinging to a piling. They got a bucket and dipped it down trying to get her. Tali made a leap for it, missed, and managed to snag another piling. At that point she started the pitiful crying. They were in the process of finding someone with a dinghy in the water to come for a rescue when we arrived with the net. She was a lucky girl, the current in this marina can be swift and she was headed away from shore, not towards it. It's also lucky that's she's such a heavy-footed walker. We're lucky too, although she can be a pain, I'd hate to lose my little Tali-girl.
So that's nine lives, minus two. One life here and one life when we found her on a cold, snowy, January night when the temperatures dipped to sub-zero and she was nothing but skin and bones.