Ladies of the Lake

The Lake of the Ozarks party cove is so notorious and so wild that lawmakers several times have tried to regulate it out of existence. But, besides stepping up enforcement against drunken and unsafe boating, reducing lake speed limits is about the only way authorities can regulate it, he says.

"Last year I think one of the senators tried to introduce a bill that would prohibit more than a certain number of boats from tying up together, but I think once they started looking at it, they decided it would be next to impossible to enforce. What number do you put on that?" he says. "You start looking at people's constitutional right to assemble--it starts to become a constitutional issue."

On the Saturday before Douglass' birthday, the water in the Lewisville Lake party cove looks as jam-packed as a public swimming pool. It appears chaotic and unsafe, at least to a newcomer. Turner, the state game warden, navigates his boat carefully through the crowd.

"You got a hundred [swimmers] in the water, easy," Turner says over the chatter of a police radio, "...and actually it's not very crowded right now."

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No one drowned at the party cove on Douglass' birthday. There was plenty of drinking and plenty of nudity, but no sex acts. Probably the biggest tragedy on this day--at least the one that evoked the most emotion--occurred when the Wet Rat's generator quit.

It meant that the food for Douglass' birthday party, scheduled for later that night at the marina, could not be heated up beforehand. Naked and topless women were forgotten while a guy named "Tinker" tinkered with the generator before deciding it needed more than what he could do on the water.

At another high point--or at least a strange one--a man and a young boy idled into the party cove and the vicinity of a boat with a topless blonde. The blonde was sitting on the back swimming deck with her legs stretched out, exposed like a Playboy model.

She waved at passing boaters and seemed to be basking in the attention. But as soon as she caught sight of the boy, she covered her breasts with her arms as if she'd been hit with a blast from the arctic. She briefly donned her top, then pulled it off again and resumed the parade-queen wave to male boaters after the boy and his father were out of sight.

In the early evening, with the sun still blazing overhead and a light breeze blowing hot as a dryer vent, Douglass pulls the Wet Rat ever so slowly out of his line of boats at the cove. A second line of boats has now appeared. The crowd looks a little younger and more rambunctious than the line of boats the Wet Rat left. As music continues to blast from nearby boats, a couple of boys appear to be vying for position on the tail of a boat, throwing punches and knocking each other into the water.

A few years ago, the Wet Rat might have had naked women on its bow for the trip back to the marina, a sort of Wet Rat tradition. Douglass says one time police stopped him because he pointed the spotlight at the bow onto the naked women, lighting them up for the whole lake to see. Police said they stopped him because the naked women were making their job difficult, Douglass says.

With his fiancee aboard and the wedding just a couple of weeks away, the only one on the bow for this trip home is O. Reilly, Douglass' business partner who is wearing swimming trunks and a sunburn. O. Reilly thinks he might "inherit" the Wet Rat after the marriage takes hold, something Douglass says is untrue.

The party cove wedding, to be officiated by a minister, is supposed to take place on a friend's houseboat in the early evening. Hall says family, friends and some party cove people will be invited to attend.

When asked if marriage will be the end of the partying days for the Wet Rat, Hall sort of rolls her eyes and says, "No," and then a bit tentatively adds, "of course not."

Douglass is more adamant about staying with the party. He insists the marriage won't affect his weekend visits.

"There isn't any other place like it," he says.

Staff writer Merritt Martin contributed to this story.