Boating

I had a conversation with my friend RaWa about boats. She said she always wanted to have a boat. I told her she could marry a guy who owned a boat and I would come over and go boating with her sometimes. I'd donate generously toward the gas fund, in return for a day of fun.

I am thoroughly of the Kathleen Kelly (You've Got Mail) mindset. There's a scene where she and Joe Fox ("F-O-X. How cute!") are wandering through an outdoor market together, discussing (among other things) the significance of 152 in her mystery man's email address and also deal-killers for her. (She does not know that Joe is her mystery man.) "Well, besides the married thing, and the jail thing, there's really only the boat thing." Joe winces. "Boat thing?" Kathleen shrugs. "I could never be with anybody who owned a boat." Joe puts a fake smile on his face and says, "I own a boat."

While I think owning a boat would be fun, boats are TONS of work. Even when we went boating on Saturday, it was a ton of work. There was the gas thing, and the buoy thing, and the rowboat thing, and the anchor thing, and the coming close but not too close thing, and then there was the getting everybody on thing...it took awhile before we even got going. But once we did, it was amazing!!!

Rule #1 for going on a boat: Always wear beach shoes. Especially when you're on the Sound, since otherwise your feet will be cut to smithereens by blistering (not blue) barnacles within seconds.

Here's a bridge! You know how I feel about bridges. And if you don't, you know now: I love them. 











Rule #2: Bring a sweatshirt/jacket. I have never been on a boat where it didn't come in handy. This boating day was no exception. This little guy went in the water and then wished he had one. (The water was about 48 degrees.)


Here's CM chillin' with the dog.We had to tie him up because he tried to go over the edge so often. (Kipper, not CM. CM was whining the whole time about how cold the water was.)

-->This is what athletic people who have never been wakeboarding can do, with zero instructions, the second time they try to get up.

Rule #3: Don't bring anything on the boat that you care about. Chances that it will get wet, blown away, eaten by someone else, or generally done away with/altered in some nefarious fashion are better than average.

<--Here's The Conrad, showing off her moves. She always goes down elegantly--just lets go on her own timing, and plugs her nose as she gracefully sinks under the wake. 

Rule #4: Put on sunscreen. I didn't, on my feet, and two weeks later, you can still see "suntan" marks from where my sandals were. Ouchie! I'm glad I reapplied several times, or my entire body would have been a hurtfest. Don't rely on someone else to bring sunscreen, either.

-->Here's CF, who was the most enthusiastic of all the wakeboarders. He got some serious air...enough that a few times, it looked like it really had to have hurt. As an aside, it seems I know a lot of tall, athletic people.

Rule #5: Bring sunglasses and a hat. Be careful of the hat, though...wouldn't want it to be blown away.

 

I had a good time boating. Perhaps my favorite bit of the day was exploring a little island that we ran across.

I got out of the boat and explored a little bit. I had the wrong shoes on...I needed mountain goat shoes to make it up a little incline into the "forest." Seems like the perfect place for an eight year old to play...enough trees to make finding your quarry difficult, but not enough to make you despair of ever finding your way back to shore.

This last little one is actually not just of clouds. If you look closely, you'll see that the thing in the middle is actually a 14,000 foot tall mountain. It just looks like a cloud from this angle. So it just goes to show: it's all a matter of perspective.