A door & a long line & sunset

I wasn't allowed to take a picture of Daya's room, understandable since nothing was put together yet, and I hope she sends more pictures.

In the meantime, she did send a picture of her door.

It is a well-decorated door, except that it is missing Bob.

I let Daya know about this oversight.

After all, Bob basically got Daya into Juilliard.

(At the interview she was asked about an inspiring movie and hers was... What About Bob..)

*******

This week is the last weekday shifts of the public program.

Not many volunteers signed up, so I figured I'd go down and help out.

I spent the whole shift on patrol, and it was a good thing because otherwise everyone would have gotten stuck out of bounds against the wall. It was a harder patrol job than I thought it would be, but I got a lot of good exercise!

We had good clouds.

LOOK AT THIS LINE omg...

This photo was taken at 6:15pm, last boats should go out at 7, sunset was 7:38.

With the help we had for the shift plus the length of this line, this is about an hour and a half line.

I was SO GLAD I was not Keyholder responsible for making the decisions...

But if I was, I would have wrist-banded the whole line right at the start and avoided this altogether.

S didn't want to do that though, and since he was keyholder I said ok, I'm going on patrol.

At 7:18 there was still a LONG line with 20 minutes until sunset, and we tell people to stay out for 20 minutes.

I paddled to the dock and told S... hey, sunset is in 20 mins, we can't put all these people in line on the water.

I said I'm not going to be on the water with the public after sunset, it's not safe.

And I'm glad I wasn't the one who had to tell the many people who had been waiting that they couldn't go on the water.

I did, however, clear out the embayment nicely because I'm good at that.

DTBH 4th

I do not do the hotline on Saturdays or 4th of July.

But our scheduling person has a sparkly influence glamour or something, so I was on the Saturday 4th of July Overnight!

It worked out well with logistics and timing though and I didn't mind.... because it was a great day at the boathouse!

Because of the overnite shift, I missed the many 250th celebration happenings on the river in the morning.
It's ok, I didn't really mind.... I did see pictures of some very cool ships.

When I arrived I saw that Martin bought many new toys for the boathouse- including pool rafts and inflatable sprinklers...we tried putting one of the pool rafts on the jousting platform but it got lopsided and started to sink......

After being in the river, I was relaxing...the manager from the restaurant next door came over and asked if I would like a frozen margarita?

Um, yes please!

I'm pretty much off alcohol except rarely. 

My system doesn't like it anymore, but I could not say no to that!

Judy and I took the sunfish out!

That was... interesting.... because there wasn't enough wind.  

It was still fun tho.

Sailing! ---sort-of!

This year we were not allowed on the water for fireworks- 250th celebrations and security.

Stiil a great show!

Apparently, Jersey City likes to compete with the neighboring shows- and they do a great job!

Boofers!

This weekend was our whitewater kayaking trip on the Lehigh River, hosted by KCCNY, the Kayak & Canoe Club of NY.

Oh my gosh.

It was SO fun!

On Saturday we had theory and drills for river safety- defensive swimming, wet exits, boat-dancing to practice hip snaps, crossing eddies, ferrying, learning about reading the river. 

It RAINED ALL DAY.

Seriously, it was so, so cold. Aside from the cold rain, the day was awesome.

We had a good campfire back at camp with everyone.

Camp pics & boat fitting:

My tent.... i did miss my hammock but the tent was fine.

My tent was mostly water-proof, except around one edge.

We all thought the dry spot underneath was funny.

Aimee did bring her hammock.

On Sunday we did a for-reals river trip. It was all Class 1, with 1 bit of Class 2 rapids at the end... they call it "graduation rapids". In the morning before lunch we practiced ferrying, high bracing, and low bracing. 

We learned the pry stroke, which is used to move sideways. 

I have a particular bad habit to use a reverse stroke to turn sharply, which isn't good because you do lose all your speed momentum.

That's not good on the river!
So I need to really get in the mindset of doing a forward sweep instead- which of course is more difficult. I can do a good sweep stroke, but I need to practice. It's like we learned this whole vocabulary of strokes and maneuvers- but practice is what brings the fluency and proper use. 

But I'm a rank beginner, so it's ok.

However- I BOOFED A ROCK!

I was SO EXCITED about this!

And Jason- one of the instructors- said my eddy crossing was "sick"... I know it was good, but also I think I had some beginners' luck!

We divided into 2 teams after lunch.

At lunch there were meat sticks for the meat-inclined people- and there was much talk about the love of meat sticks from the people who... love them.

One of our instructors is named John.

And I guess earlier there was a joke where someone said "Do you need a hand, John?" but it was..... mis-heard, to much laughter.

And that's how we got to be Team Meat Stick and Team Hand John.

Despite being veg, I was proud to be on Team Meat Stick!

Team Meat Stick:

Team Hand John:

The class picture:

Whitewater kayaking is very, very different than the sea kayaking I am used to.

Some of the skills are transferrable though, and I was glad to have previous kayaking experience... otherwise I think I would have been overwhelmed.

There were people in the class who were brand new to kayaking, and they did well, which was impressive. It's not easy and there is a very high level of physical stamina.

This is something I definitely want to do again. 

It really was awesome.

Bracing with Chev

Tonight at the boathouse we had a very special guest teacher! 

Chev Dixon is a professional kayaker and good friend of some boathouse people.

He did a deck boat class for a specially-invited small group... I feel honored to have been part of it!

Tonight we practiced low bracing.

That's something you do when you're going to tip over, well one of the many things.

It was a wonderful class and I learned so much!

Deck boats are beautiful, and fun...but a pain to clean afterwards.

The Amazing Sludge Streak

Today I was keyholder in charge of the Sunday morning opening shift.

I got to the boathouse around 8:45am.

Normally, people start arriving by 9:30 for a 10am opening.

9:30 rolled around and I was still all alone... which was fine by me.

Everyone was probably wrecked from the historic Knicks win last night.

People showed up to kayak and I told all of them to come back at 11.

A delayed opening doesn't stress me out, not one bit.

I felt so chill and mellow and peaceful.

When I am keyholder in charge of a shift, I want good vibes.

People started showing up around 9:30 but we didn't open until 10:45.

It was a good shift.

Low tide can be pretty gross, and for a little while we had the most incredible 9and disgusting) sludge streak.

Of course I had to take pictures... and send to Bitz to let her know The Blob's cousin showed up today and says hi.

I feel like the sludge layers can be artistic, maybe one day if conditions are right I can paint the sludge.

That would be a fun painting.

Tick or Treat...?

I'm camping next weekend and I can't hammock so I'm bringing my tent.

Which needs to be tick-proofed.

Along with my clothing.

I am paranoid about ticks.

The boathouse is the perfect place to spray poison around.

I got there around 2pm, it was 91 degrees out, and no one was there!

Perfect!

So I put orange cones out, weighed down my tent, and sprayed everything.

The tick stuff says let dry for 2 hours but I didn't think it would take that long, and it didn't. 

I texted Aimee that it was a perfect day to tick treat...... which is close to but VERY different from trick-or-treating....

The forecasted t-storms moved to later, and people showed up and we went on the water.

I also went for a nice swim with my orange disco.

Friends:

The sky got dramatic...

Here is Judy being enlightening.