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May. 19th, 2006 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickToday I took a day off work and went on an adventure with Nana and Duncan of the Dragon Clan. (Has nothing to do with Wu Fei. Nothing. My life is not a fanfic.) Apparently I am AuntJessicaDragon and judging from the way the boy says it, that's all one word.
First, we went to the beach, a real beach with real waves to come up and tickle our feet. (I am not sure where this phrasing comes from, but the young dragon used it repeatedly.) When we got to the beach (Do NOT useYahoo driving directions without looking at a real map. Just don't.), Duncan decided he did not want to walk over the sand dunes to get to the beach (not visible from the parking lot due to the damn sand dunes being in the way) because the sand would get in his sandals. We took the sandals off and proceeded. I'm all about the Alexandrian solutions, myself, and we did not drive two hours to a Real Ocean (TM) so that the boy could wimp out. If that had been our game plan, we would have cheated and gone to Sandy Point, which has lesser, semi-adequate waves due to being Chesapeake Bay instead of Real Ocean(TM). We laid out the blanket and set down the cooler and the boy took off his pants so that they wouldn't get wet. (Note to self: Make sure boy comes with a bathing suit next time, even if it is too early for swimming season.)
In his underwear (Thomas the Tank Engine) and a t-shirt, he met the ocean. I do not think children's faces break from grinning too hard, but if that had been possible, it would have happened today. Duncan let the waves wash over his feet about three times and then he decided he did not need to hold my hand, he could do it himself. Whatever. So I let go and he stepped forward and the wave washed over his feet and, as waves do, ran back down the beach to the rest of the sea. The boy followed the water. I was like "Dude, wait!" but his brain was totally not engaged in listening because, d'oh, THE OCEAN!!! WITH WAVES!!! The next wave (and there is always a next wave, that being one of the amazing things about the ocean) took his feet out from under him and he went facefirst into the Atlantic ocean. (The water was kind of chilly. The weather was sunny and fairly warm, in the low seventies.) He was NOT amused. I fished him out and schlepped him back to the blanket. He demanded that his wet shirt be taken off. He also wanted to strip off the wet underwear but I allowed as how we'd better leave those on to be polite. (Body modesty isn't factory-installed, but I'm doing my part for the aftermarket installation.)
Mad at the ocean, Duncan didn't want to have anything else to do with it. He HATED the ocean, but fortunately, he has the attention span of a hummingbird. While he hated the ocean, we built a sandcastle and looked for shells to decorate it.
We found pieces of broken crabs. For some reason, Duncan thought this was very exciting. I thought it was an experience redolent of eau de dead crustacea.
We walked up the beach, collecting shells, and then ran back to Nana Dragon to show her the treasures. (He won all the races.)
We found driftwood and threw a hunk of it into the water so that we could see how the waves would push it back up on the beach and take it away and push it up on the beach and take it away. (I thought this was interesting. So did the boy. Mom was sort of floored that she'd taken me and my brothers to the beach a lot as kids and had never, ever thought to throw a semi-buoyant object into the waves in order to see how the waves worked.)
We looked at the tire tracks left by the beach groomers and talked about why there were beach groomers and littering.
We looked at the takings of better beachcombers than we were -- they had parts of a horseshoe crab and some interesting corals and were very nice about letting us look at their haul.
We saw and heard seagulls.
We looked at the high line of shells, the stuff at the storm line, well above high tide. I said "Duncan, how do you think all those shells got all the way up there?" Duncan said "It was a big wave." Yeah. A big wave. Good boy!
And then, since we were over being mad at the Atlantic, we practiced finding the right spot to stand so that the waves could tickle our feet without overwhelming us... it was very much a guided practice thing. Look for where the sand is wet. Can you feel that wetness on your feet? Notice how it's firmer than dry sand? Okay, so now watch the waves. Can you see where they come to? Are we close enough? Hrm. It looks like we're a little far away. Let's scoot up a little. Is this good? What if a bigger than usual wave comes? Should we move back?
Nana felt he needed to hold her hand so that she could be brave enough to do the water-feet thing. Whatever. That's not my style. I am not that style of thing. Me, I do guided practice on picking the right place to stand so that you don't get knocked over by surprise again.
In the end, the beach was a big success and the Atlantic didn't suck all that much. It was good.
After that, we went to Annapolis and sailed on a real sailing ship (a schooner with two masts, front mast being shorter than more centerly mast) with real sails. The ship did not have any pirates on it.
The absolute high point of the real sailing ship was that the crew let the boy steer (all by himself, nobody else holding the wheel) for like half an hour. Circumstances being what they were (midweek, before the season really gets underway), there were five non-crew on board and for the first hour or so, there was virtually no wind. At Annapolis in the summertime, the wind picks up as it gets into late afternoon or evening, along about 5 PM. We got on the boat at 4 PM. Since we were zipping along at 1.2 knots (I could probably walk faster than that), it was slow enough to let a four year old drive the boat... and they did.
The boat was large enough to have a real ship wheel to steer with instead of a lever rudder so this was very thrilling. The ship also had a bell, which the boy rang. Once.
After the wind picked up a little, we got to see the boat tack several times. This was exciting because when you tack, all the sails and their booms (the flat part at the bottom of the sail. If you've seen Pirates of the Caribbean, this is the part that young Will winds up dangling from when he and Sparrow are sailing to Tortuga) go from one side of the ship to the other. It is very flappy and there is much business with the ropes because, on the schooner we were on, the fisherman (square sail, last one raised, does not have a boom) has to be manually shifted from one side to the other during tacking and then affixed in the new position once the tack is completed. Other types of sailboats also have this manual-adjustment issue with some of their sails -- it wasn't just a thing peculiar to the boat we were on.
At the end of the cruise, they put the sails down, one at a time, and carefully folded them up into the booms. That was kind of neat, also.
I learned that there are a lot of ropes on a sailboat, even a modern sailboat.
First, we went to the beach, a real beach with real waves to come up and tickle our feet. (I am not sure where this phrasing comes from, but the young dragon used it repeatedly.) When we got to the beach (Do NOT useYahoo driving directions without looking at a real map. Just don't.), Duncan decided he did not want to walk over the sand dunes to get to the beach (not visible from the parking lot due to the damn sand dunes being in the way) because the sand would get in his sandals. We took the sandals off and proceeded. I'm all about the Alexandrian solutions, myself, and we did not drive two hours to a Real Ocean (TM) so that the boy could wimp out. If that had been our game plan, we would have cheated and gone to Sandy Point, which has lesser, semi-adequate waves due to being Chesapeake Bay instead of Real Ocean(TM). We laid out the blanket and set down the cooler and the boy took off his pants so that they wouldn't get wet. (Note to self: Make sure boy comes with a bathing suit next time, even if it is too early for swimming season.)
In his underwear (Thomas the Tank Engine) and a t-shirt, he met the ocean. I do not think children's faces break from grinning too hard, but if that had been possible, it would have happened today. Duncan let the waves wash over his feet about three times and then he decided he did not need to hold my hand, he could do it himself. Whatever. So I let go and he stepped forward and the wave washed over his feet and, as waves do, ran back down the beach to the rest of the sea. The boy followed the water. I was like "Dude, wait!" but his brain was totally not engaged in listening because, d'oh, THE OCEAN!!! WITH WAVES!!! The next wave (and there is always a next wave, that being one of the amazing things about the ocean) took his feet out from under him and he went facefirst into the Atlantic ocean. (The water was kind of chilly. The weather was sunny and fairly warm, in the low seventies.) He was NOT amused. I fished him out and schlepped him back to the blanket. He demanded that his wet shirt be taken off. He also wanted to strip off the wet underwear but I allowed as how we'd better leave those on to be polite. (Body modesty isn't factory-installed, but I'm doing my part for the aftermarket installation.)
Mad at the ocean, Duncan didn't want to have anything else to do with it. He HATED the ocean, but fortunately, he has the attention span of a hummingbird. While he hated the ocean, we built a sandcastle and looked for shells to decorate it.
We found pieces of broken crabs. For some reason, Duncan thought this was very exciting. I thought it was an experience redolent of eau de dead crustacea.
We walked up the beach, collecting shells, and then ran back to Nana Dragon to show her the treasures. (He won all the races.)
We found driftwood and threw a hunk of it into the water so that we could see how the waves would push it back up on the beach and take it away and push it up on the beach and take it away. (I thought this was interesting. So did the boy. Mom was sort of floored that she'd taken me and my brothers to the beach a lot as kids and had never, ever thought to throw a semi-buoyant object into the waves in order to see how the waves worked.)
We looked at the tire tracks left by the beach groomers and talked about why there were beach groomers and littering.
We looked at the takings of better beachcombers than we were -- they had parts of a horseshoe crab and some interesting corals and were very nice about letting us look at their haul.
We saw and heard seagulls.
We looked at the high line of shells, the stuff at the storm line, well above high tide. I said "Duncan, how do you think all those shells got all the way up there?" Duncan said "It was a big wave." Yeah. A big wave. Good boy!
And then, since we were over being mad at the Atlantic, we practiced finding the right spot to stand so that the waves could tickle our feet without overwhelming us... it was very much a guided practice thing. Look for where the sand is wet. Can you feel that wetness on your feet? Notice how it's firmer than dry sand? Okay, so now watch the waves. Can you see where they come to? Are we close enough? Hrm. It looks like we're a little far away. Let's scoot up a little. Is this good? What if a bigger than usual wave comes? Should we move back?
Nana felt he needed to hold her hand so that she could be brave enough to do the water-feet thing. Whatever. That's not my style. I am not that style of thing. Me, I do guided practice on picking the right place to stand so that you don't get knocked over by surprise again.
In the end, the beach was a big success and the Atlantic didn't suck all that much. It was good.
After that, we went to Annapolis and sailed on a real sailing ship (a schooner with two masts, front mast being shorter than more centerly mast) with real sails. The ship did not have any pirates on it.
The absolute high point of the real sailing ship was that the crew let the boy steer (all by himself, nobody else holding the wheel) for like half an hour. Circumstances being what they were (midweek, before the season really gets underway), there were five non-crew on board and for the first hour or so, there was virtually no wind. At Annapolis in the summertime, the wind picks up as it gets into late afternoon or evening, along about 5 PM. We got on the boat at 4 PM. Since we were zipping along at 1.2 knots (I could probably walk faster than that), it was slow enough to let a four year old drive the boat... and they did.
The boat was large enough to have a real ship wheel to steer with instead of a lever rudder so this was very thrilling. The ship also had a bell, which the boy rang. Once.
After the wind picked up a little, we got to see the boat tack several times. This was exciting because when you tack, all the sails and their booms (the flat part at the bottom of the sail. If you've seen Pirates of the Caribbean, this is the part that young Will winds up dangling from when he and Sparrow are sailing to Tortuga) go from one side of the ship to the other. It is very flappy and there is much business with the ropes because, on the schooner we were on, the fisherman (square sail, last one raised, does not have a boom) has to be manually shifted from one side to the other during tacking and then affixed in the new position once the tack is completed. Other types of sailboats also have this manual-adjustment issue with some of their sails -- it wasn't just a thing peculiar to the boat we were on.
At the end of the cruise, they put the sails down, one at a time, and carefully folded them up into the booms. That was kind of neat, also.
I learned that there are a lot of ropes on a sailboat, even a modern sailboat.
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Boat Ride
Date: 2006-05-19 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-19 12:44 pm (UTC)I like the Atlantic, and we enjoy doing all that stuff. Of course, I like the Pacific too. And some day, the Mediterranean will be tickling my feet! And the Indian Ocean!
no subject
Date: 2006-05-22 07:46 pm (UTC)