Pirates!

"Pirates," I questioned.

"Pirates."

"Pirates. Here at Willard Bay?"

"Sure. Why not?"

I glanced surreptitiously at my beautiful but confusing wife. Willard Bay is not somewhere you expect to see pirates. With a maximum depth of 13 feet, how much booty could any ship on this small offshoot of the Great Salt Lake hold?

Nevertheless, the guns and the knives looked real. Upon closer inspection however, the shaggy beard and peg-leg seemed fake.

"Hmm," I thought and looked again at my wife. With an air of unconcerned interest, she looked over the approaching ship closely.

"I wonder if we can outrun them?"

I glanced at the five horsepower motor on their small aluminum fishing boat and felt pretty certain that our Malibu ski boat could outrun them. The problem was-where to run?

Willard Bay is a medium sized lake similar to the Great Salt Lake except it isn't salty and doesn't stink. We once went on a romantic date canoeing on the Great Salt Lake. It wasn't romantic. It's the only date I've been on where it smelled better inside the outhouse. Of course, most of our dates don't involve pit toilets in the first place.

But, pirates? Come on. I looked around for the hidden cameras. Nope, I didn't see any.

Their small fishing dinghy banged against the side of our boat. Being over six-feet tall and standing on a boat three feet taller than the pirates', it was hard to feel intimidated. It didn't help that the lead pirate was just under five-feet tall and looked more like Barney Fife in drag than Blackbeard.

"Arrgh. Batten down the giblets and hand over the boogey."

I smiled quizzically but quickly became more respectful as he waved a real looking semi-automatic pistol in my general direction.

"What?" I asked as respectfully as I could to a five foot tall pirate in drag in a small fishing boat.

"Give me your wallet," he said as he elbowed his fellow pirate with a wink.

I cocked my head to one side and my wife whispered with great aplomb, "I think he's serious, dear."

The pirate animatedly waved his pistol left, right, up, down, in circles-I couldn't help but begin to hum the Macarena.

Apparently he had a strong dislike for humming-or maybe for the Macarena-he frowned, scowled, burped once, pulled the trigger and promptly shot his co-pirate in the foot.

This probably wouldn't have been such a big deal-most pirates aren't cut from overly compassionate material. But this pirate seemed unusually concerned. Perhaps it was the hole he'd also shot in the bottom of his fishing dinghy.

The other pirate-the limping, swearing, bleeding one-began to hop blindly on one leg. Small fishing boats are not very stable.

With a curse Blackbeard the peg-legged. one brain-celled, pirate in drag pointed his Ruger forty-five at his companion and forced him to stop thrashing about.

"Would you like a lift back to the dock," I asked, as water poured into the dingies' dinghy.

With sudden recognition and a small, sad sigh, the pirate said, "I can't swim."

"You didn't think this out too well," I commented without rancor-"You'll have to throw the gun overboard."

With a shrug he dropped the gun over the side and looked up expectantly at me. A few moments later, after disposing of their arsenal of weapons, we helped them aboard and settled in for a quick ride back to the marina.

Surprisingly they were quite demanding even as passengers. The bleeding pirate practically refused to ride all the way back on the swim platform but I was adamant-pirate blood does not go well with Malibu sky blue. After threatening to throw them both overboard, they finally relented and we made the return trip without incident.

By the time we arrived at the marina, we were fully aware of several things. First, our two pirates, in true pirate tradition, were three sheets to the wind. Second, we weren't their first attempted victims (apparently their previous forays had also ended in disaster). Their pirate garb and persona were intended as a disguise. And finally, these were by far the dumbest pirates we've ever met.

Now, you may ask yourself-is this story true? All I can say is my six-year-old son and I seem to run into pirates every time we head out to Willard Bay.