Summer Summary

A little birdie my SIL rapped on my computer screen and reminded me that it was time to post, so here goes.

With autumn almost around the corner, it seemed a fitting time to wrap up my summer. Maybe some of you will remember this familiar little task that we used to have to do in school. "What did you do over the summer, little Johnny?". I used to hate when that question was asked, and always struggled because there wasn't much that happened.

So "What did you do over the summer, little masgblog?".

Masgblog struggles yet again. What the heck DID we do?

Well, I can tell you that we spent a lot of time watching the weather. Because we spend so much time on the boat, we were constantly acquiring weather updates, be they from the VHF, the Internet, and the good old radio. Sometimes the reports were accurate, but most times they were not. If we had stayed at the dock every time they mentioned r-a-i-n, we would not have gone anywhere, but being the daredevils that we are, with a thirst for living dangerously, we would venture out and were able to handle whatever Mother Nature dealt.

What else did we do? Diddly squat else. We worked...a lot. We went to the gym...a lot.

Oh! We met some new friends this year. The friendship sort of started at the end of last year's boating season, but it really took off this year. Very nice indeed.

So sometimes, when you have to tell that little school tale, it's not always about WHAT you did that matters.

Dreamboat

Meet Adam van Koeverden. *sigh*. Canadian kayak athlete, and our medal hope in kayak racing at the Beijing Olympics. *sigh*. He carried the Canadian flag at the opening ceremonies. *sigh*.

He was born the year that we got married...1982, so he's just a babe, and now I feel very, very old indeed. *old sigh*

A couple of weeks ago, there was a picture of him in the newspaper, and I had to dry out the newspaper afterward from my drooling.

Anyway, like tennis, I love kayaking. This time I can say that I really do. Now, I don't do long distance kayak stuff, and I only have my little 10 foot plastic kayak, but I love tootling around the bay.

Actually, this is my third kayak in about three years. The first kayak was an 8 foot sit-on style. It was alright, but the tracking was awful and My Sweetie got very wet as soon as he sat in it. We needed something that would be suitable for each of us.

The second kayak was a 10 foot sit-in. I fell out of it twice, and had a helluva time getting both in and out of it from our sailboat and from the water (after falling out).

Third time lucky. I love the one we now have....a 10 foot sit-on.

Thankfully, this particular company makes allowances for trade-ins.

A Soft Landing

We have had a soft landing back from a 2 week vacation. It was an escape from the real world to my world on the water. Tomorrow, it will be back to the working world, deadlines, meetings, deliverables. That's okay. We had our 2 week hiatus.

During the last 2 weeks, we dodged thunderstorms, and mostly had nice weather. The further inland we got, the warmer the water temperature....that was glorious, and it was also what we were hunting for....warm water and nice weather. At the end of our holiday, we had a fantastic sail back home, complete with 8-foot seas, but solid wind to give us a nice broad reach....and no tacking!

This holiday was a bit different in that we had travel companions along the way, both were boats which occupy the same dock in our home port.

For the first week, we made our way with sailboat friends who have a sailboat the same vintage as ours, just a bit smaller. One memorable part of that trip was the dinghy ride from the anchorage to a marina restaurant....the waves were kind of big for dinghy riding, and we ll got soaked. Thankfully, we were all able to laugh about it...and the other couple are still talking to us.

For the second week, we met up with powerboat friends, who were keen to experience some of lovely bays that we are familiar with. These folks have 2 children, and we would all get together for group swims, especially since their young son conquered his fear of deep water, and was able to jump in from the back of the boat with a noodle!

There were some other things which made the holiday splendid. Our solar panel, which we installed this season, worked as planned, eliminating our need to charge our batteries by running the engine every day. My new kayak is simply marvy....and I didn't fall in or out of it.

And so we are back....with a few mosquito bites, a nice tan (thanks to SPF-50 sunscreen), and a boatload of memories.