Nothing like a little boat rescue expotition to liven up a typical boring day on the moominbeach. “Isn’t the sun over the yardarm yet dear?” “No, not for another four hours.” And so another long, hard afternoon of sitting in the sun reading, napping, facebooking, debating ad nauseam how to cook a bat should you find one flapping around in your toilet or what the little metallic flecks in that rock are and whether or not it should be licked, begins.

Yesterday afternoon we hit the jackpot! The wind came up into a little bit of a nor’wester, maybe about 2-4 foot waves? I may be overstating those a bit, I’m not sure how they measure waves. Anyway, one young cousin decided it was just about right to sail the old Boston Whaler. I thought, “Sure, why not?” After all, that old tub is supposed to be unsinkable and un-tippable. That’s what we were told back in the Jurassic Age when it was new and, of course, that was a challenge to all of us kids to try to tip or sink it. And guess what? I don’t think we ever managed to accomplish either of those things, even with 12 of us in it or whatever.

So, perfect day for a sale sail (sheesh) in a little unsinkable, un-tippable bathtub boat. Our hero dredged up the sail and stuff and off he went. He had a bit of difficulty getting launched at first and got pretty wet in the process but finally he was off sailing around the bay with something resembling aplomb (or whatever word is appropriate here).

I retreated up to the moomincabin at that point and was working away at dinner and cocktail hour when the GG came running up from the beach yelling, “he tipped the boat over!” Fortunately, he wasn’t very far out and it only took moments for those on the beach to realize that he was all right and actively trying to right the boat. By the time I got down there, a certain red-headed heroine was paddling steadfastly out to retrieve our hero and the old bathtub boat. She towed him in and we all lived happily ever after. Or at least managed to resume our cocktail hour.

Not to end on a sour note but this is a beach on one of the great lakes. This little story ended happily but some of them don’t. There were people on the beach reading facebooking watching our hero, ready to come to his aid. Don’t swim or boat alone (among other warnings and admonitions) and always, always watch the weather conditions, ever-changing on the great lakes.

Love y’all. Be safe,

KW

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.