PRITTLES, KITTLES, AND THE MAL DE MER

Casey — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:10:55 -0500

Prittles, Kittles, and the Mal de Mer (Continued...)

AUGUST OUTING

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:21:28 -0500

Envision for a moment a scene from your dream of cruising on a sailboat: anchored off a lovely beach, beautiful vista of open water and other islands off the port bow, the gentlest of breezes lightly ruffling the water between you and another graceful classic ketch. Are you in that moment? Can you feel your hand reach for the cold fruit and rum concoction? Now relive it with me... the sound isn't Jimmy Buffet exactly, and the orange-ish thing in the drink holder seems to have become some little stuffed animal instead of a cocktail. It's a little simulation of a feral cat of some sort and it's called Peeky, or Sneaky or Streaky or something and you never get it right and all the various children shout from all their various crouching spots aboard the boat the correct animal name in shrill and reproachfully offended voices, and its sounds pretty much like what you just called it, and what freaking ever anyway, it isn't your drink, and it isn't easy to hear, and is all that pain in your forehead from the roar in your ears? The sound is not the kids so much, not even really the torrential mid August deluge of rain pounding against the water, the deck, and especially the increasingly leaky enclosed cockpit canvas, but it's that other roar, ROAR, really, that is coming from the open upper deck of a power boat 50 yards away, that has an air cooled, and apparently absolutely unmufflered non-marine John Deere generator the size of a small sedan running for (I'm not kidding here) its 6th straight hour while producing what judging by engine size and decibel range must be 150,000 watts of electricity. More power than every boat in Shallow Bay could use all together in 48 hours. The boat did not have its name on the transom or I would post it here and every where else. Anything other than a family of ten below his deck all in iron lung machines and the old guy really ought to get spear gunned, because he obviously does not have his hearing aids in and thinks the vibration in his hull is coming from gawd knows what (a Geritol and Viagra smoothie whipped up in his 200 gallon AC commercial blender?). And you are playing Snakes and Ladders (a game invented by Spanish Inquisitors 500 years ago to destroy the life spirit of any possible heretics that had been left unbowed by the rack) with a crazed Super Competitor 7 year old boy on a tiny eye-scrunching magnetic travel set, with a single die half the size of your smallest fingernail, and no matter how many times either of you get within a few rolls of the agony ending finish of the game, it's always another trip back down the really long snake and then another short one, which absolutely delights the boy (and add a heaping of guilt to how you feel because the kid thinks this is special time with his Dad, and you only feel like you are being burned alive) and there you are right back to the very beginning of the interminable game, and you realize that you had drifted off in a reverie, a dream of cruising on a sailboat and how great it would be, while you were actually aboard one already! (Continued...)

El Gato Negro or Ninja with an oar

Casey — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 19:09:51 -0600

The salon of the boat was suddenly (and uniquely) quiet, as everyone stared at me. Not the usual way they stare at me: 'What have you done/broken/said/drank/eaten this time?' They (a father {not me}, two sons {not mine}, wife and three children {okay those were mine}) appeared surprised and impressed. (Continued...)

VOYAGES OF THE DAWN TREADER: SailBlogs

PRITTLES, KITTLES, AND THE MAL DE MER

AUGUST OUTING

El Gato Negro or Ninja with an oar