Invisible Underwater Obstructions

Jacksonville, Florida, my hometown, is often called the River City. The St. Johns River, one of the few rivers in the world that flow north, runs right through the center of town and a wooden walkway, appropriately called the Riverwalk, flanks both banks.

Boats of every sort cruise the river. Mighty aircraft carriers name Mayport, at the mouth of the river, their homeport. Water taxis ferry passengers from Southbank to Northbank. Pleasure yachts and cruise ships tie up right behind the old City Hall. Tall sailboats glide under the bridges, which have to be raised bringing auto traffic to a stop. Speed boats dash along. Crab boats work the waters. Tug boats pushing barges trudge through the city. Casino ships sucker in gamblers. Jet skis roar. Kayaks paddle.

Any hour day or night you see boats moving on the river.

What you don’t see is what’s under the dark waters.

Couple of times a year some boater rams his craft into a bridge pilling, dock, tree or other boat. You can assume that he’s drunk or not paying attention.

But, other times the wreck is not necessarily the boater’s fault; he hits some invisible obstruction under the water. Some obstructions are natural, a drifting log, a grazing manatee, a shifting sandbar. Other unseen underwater obstructions are man made. For instance, back in 1865 an enemy ship, the Maple Leaf, ran into one of our Confederate mines and sank. If the yankee invaders had stayed where they belonged, their boat wouldn’t have got in trouble. Serves ‘em right. In recent years divers have recovered all sorts of goodies from the Maple Leaf wreck site to put in a museum. The relics draw more yankees.

But, I’m getting sidetracked.

There are unseen things under the water that can mess you up big time.

For instance, one night about 3 a.m. I was out casting a 12-foot net to catch shrimp when my net snagged on something. I tugged this way and I tugged that way, but I couldn’t free my net. I had to go into the dark water, follow the guide line down to the river bottom about 15 reet under, and feel my way around the obstruction to get my net loose. In zero visibility, I discovered that I’d cast my net over a grocery cart which some… citizen… had shoved off the dock into the water. Blessings on him – or something.

A shopping cart.

Upside down.

Under 15 feet of dark water.

With my net tangled over the wheels.

What makes me remember this incident?

Over the past few months I’ve been working on a book manuscript, A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad. Initially it ran to 467 pages. I used a template. I set margins and tabs. I inserted section breaks, headers and footers. I eliminated widows and orphans. I resized graphics. Spellchecked. Removed redundancies. Polished. Tweaked. Designed a book cover … At last my ship was ready to launch. I could cast my perfect bread upon the waters…

Then, last night when I went to upload my manuscript and convert it into a pdf file for the printer, I get an error message. There was a box to click for more information. I clicked it. A dropdown box told me “Formatting Error. Action can not be accomplished.” --- BUT IT WILL NOT TELL ME WHAT THE ERROR IS OR WHERE TO FIND IT IN THE 467-PAGE MANUSCRIPT!!!!

Damn yankee software!