Houseboat Hooligans: The Garbage Scow

It started off to be a fine house boating trip. Just another pilgrimage to the house boating mecca of the Shuswap lakes. Only this time, there were womenfolk accompanying us. Food, beer and liquor were available in abundance. With the women aboard, the food was of a somewhat higher quality than the ramen and dry and canned soups of previous trips. Canned and dry goods just wouldn’t do. They wanted something fancier and more elegant. Fresh meat was stocked in the fridge. And there was also shrimp among the provisions. Dinner the first few nights was good, much better than most were normally used to house boating.

The next couple of days were spent floating in on the water between several regular destinations. None of these destinations had facilities for disposing of garbage though. This wasn’t something that we needed to deal with in the past. Trash from dry and canned goods compacts easily and doesn’t take up much space. But this time, the trash was more organic. The trash was shrimp shells and meat packaging. So for two or three days, garbage bags accumulated on the back deck. The weather was warm and sunny. We floated around blissfully drunk, pointing the houseboat into the wind so the smell from the back deck wouldn’t be blown into the main cabin. And then, one day, the wind stopped, or the smell of trash and shrimp shells baking in the sun became too overpowering. In any case, suddenly the trash needed to be disposed of. The stench from the trash was just to much to handle.
The map was consulted to find the nearest garbage disposal area. It was at the other end of the arm and would take most of a day to get there. Too late to head off for it, it would have to wait until morning. So another night was spent partying on the beach and getting loaded. There was little happening near our houseboat though. The smell was just too bad. All the action was happening up the beach.

The next morning we traveled to the Narrows and disposed of our trash. But the smell lingered. Not nearly as bad as before, but it was still there.

Shrimp was never brought on a houseboat trip again.