Boating

I really like floating on the water, the feeling of floating, and the sunshine there, and the water rippling gently. So I had the idea of buying an inflatable boat. Less investment and seriousness than a kayak, and there is space inside to lay down to read a book or to have a friend come too. I just wanted it to be able to float on the tiny lake that is by my house.

On Sunday, it was supposed to be really warm, so I assembled the boat and oars, packed up my sunscreen, water and book, grabbed the floatation device/seat cushion and started the walk across the street and park to the water. This began the list of things that I had not considered in my planning. The day was fairly windy and here was me carrying an inflatable raft that acted like a little sail really. This also started the fatigue to my poor arms. And it made me laugh whenever the wind gusted and I started walking crookedly.

There are two options for where to put the boat in. Option one is off of the floating dock. This was scary as there were a bunch of people on it. The other option, which at first seemed safer is where the water gradually extends off of a ramp of pavement. The place where people can launch the kind of boats that would have a trailer. I thought this was the way to go, until I saw a truck with a sailboat that was going to start it's approach. I didn't trust my rowing skills to get out of the way in a timely enough fashion. So off to the floating dock it was. I was already wondering how many people I would need to apologize to for hitting with the mass of my boat. Miraculously, I didn't hit anyone and fairly smoothly got my boat in the water and me and my stuff inside of it. Then I had the realization that I haven't rowed a boat in a bit. But I was off! So I rowed around a bit, floated for only a few minutes at a time cause I didn't want to end up too far in the weeds.

The entire boat trip only lasted about an hour. I didn't want my poor little arms to be too tired the next day or too tired to get me back to the dock. There were some things that I did not think about beforehand that came to mind during the boat trip:

1. Carrying this boat on a windy day is hard.
2. My arms are not in shape.
3. Plastic oars that you twist together do not stay exactly where you twisted them and need to be adjusted.
4. I get seasick. This I knew before but hadn't thought about in my preparations.

My rowing turned out to be okay though. Overall, the first trip was a success. (I got to float, the boat didn't pop, I have both oars still, I didn't need rescuing, success.)

We shall see what future adventures are in store for this boat. I think it'll be good.