Boating and Canoeing

My good friend Marie, whom many of you will no doubt know from previous posts on this site, was visiting me some days back. We were hanging out, playing the Wii, chatting (like.. irl talking.. not chatting over the webstah) and doing a bit of puzzling, when another friend called. She was planning a picnic kind of thing, that involved renting boats and rowing around in them (which is what you most often do with a boat, I guess). I'm not much of a seadog, but rowing is actually quite fun, and spending time out of the house for a change sounded kind of appealling. But alas, it was scheduled to Thursday, seeing as Thursday is a national holiday around these parts, meaning everybody would be off.

That everybody almost always excludes me, since working in a business that operates 24/7/365 means holidays doesn't mean a day off, but 'just' double pay. So, I was working Wednesday and Thursday. That effectively meant, that if I were to join them in their nautical endeavor, I'd have to plan carefully. Initially I was reluctant, due to this planning business. I knew I'd have to sacrifice sleep, and wasn't keen on doing it. But I decided to give hell to sleep, and just do whatever I could. There was much rejoicing among the group of participants, because they all love me so damn much and really really REALLY want to spend a day in my company.

Aaaaaanyway, I got home at half past seven am, and promptly went to bed. Setting my alarm for 10 am, I had 2½ hours of sleep ahead of me, before I had to leave for the rendevouz point. And those 2½ hours went by pretty damn fast. Got up, took a shower, got dressed and was off. My eyes hurt like shit. And my head was almost at a stillstand. The day before I was up early as well, and only got another hour of sleep before work, so things were looking bleak already.

Got on the train, and figured, since the train I caught, didn't stop between the stop following mine, and the one I needed to get off at, that I'd just drive that last stop without buying the extra ticket. But of course, train dudes got on, and started loafing about. I exited the train, and just as it left, I disovered that they had all done the same. What the hell they were doing, I didn't figure out. But I bought the extra ticket, and waited for the next train. Annoying. But at least I got there without being late, for once.

I met up with Marie, Nina, our friend, Nina's boyfriend, Nina's daughter and Nina's brother. A regular family outing, if you'd like. The plan: renting boats, and messing around on the little river thingy for a few hours. We grabbed a bus, and some minutes, and lots of laughs later, we got off at the boat renting place. Confusion ensued straight away, because a few renting vendors were situation on either side of the street. But we found the correct one, and were issued safety vests in exchange for just one drivers license. So, we were at the moment of choice. One rowing boat, and one canoe. Who were going where with whom?

Marie and I quickly opted out of the canoe. I find them harder to navigate. Not as much in the water as navigating yourself around the canoe. Not so with the rowing boat. I've some experience with it from our house in Sweden, so it was a natural choice for me. Nina and her brother went for the Canoe, and they brought along the daughter. So we got the boyfriend for our team. And off we were. Nina had packed homemade goodness in the shape of mini pizzas, sausage rolls, and something we call dreamcake. It's buntcake with a mix of brown sugar and coco on the top. As cakes go, it's a decent choice. I started us off, rowing fairly securely downriver, only bumping into shit occasionally. Neither Marie nor the boyfriend had ever tried rowing a boat before. So I was very much the most advanced guy there. Nina and her brother were going at it with both paddles in the canoe, and keeping up was hard.

After a bit, we foind a small niche kind of thing. Like a small river offspring. We decided to explore, and after convincing Nina's daughter that there would be very few, if in fact any, tigers and lions and what have we at the end of the niche, we let the canoe enter, to scout out a decent location. They came back, proclaiming it was a dead end (something I never understood constituted a problem). A little further down the river, we found another niche, something I figured was actually the exit part of the previous niche (never having believed it to be a dead-end in the first place), and of course I was proven right. Again, the canoe was sent in to survey the conditions, and we were summoned when they were found to be adequate. Now, navigating a canoe down a slim and narrow river isn't terribly hard. Doing the same thing with a rowing boat, however... totally different thing. 10 minutes in, and we had gone 5 meters upstream, and were wedged in between both sides. Two canoes were trying to circumnavigate us, but one of us in the boat were doing one thing, and the other was counteracting. So we didn't move a lot. The first canoe managed to get around with stifled grins and incredulous smiles. The second canoe was steered by a dad and two kids, and none of them seemed terribly pro at the whole canoeing business. Another 5 minutes passed with weird and awkward flailing of oars and paddles, arms and strained faces. Finally, we were free, and I took over control of the boat, effectively steering os to safety... and food.

We inhaled some pizzathingymajigs, drank some soda and enjoyed looking at a cluster of small frogs, who were swimming around what looked suspiciously like the well from Silence of the Lambs, only a lot less fucked up, and with more water... and frogs. Anywho, they were kind of cute. Mere minutes later, Marie belched rather loudly (she's a charming girl, really), and Nina's daughter thought it was a big frog coming to get us. We all had a jolly fine laugh at this notion. Mostly because it sound nothing like a frog. And also because if a frog was big enough to devour the lot of us, I'd probably not ever again dare go out into this nature-business. After the mood had passed, we set sail once again. This time, the siblings towed us after their canoe, mumbling something about wanting to get home before they were old enough to retire, or something. I didn't quite catch it.

Back on the big river, I relinquished control of the boat to Marie, and let her have a go at the oars. Quite the rowing virging, I was surprised at how well she did. A few kinks in the first strokes, but after that, it was full speed ahead. She asked me to snap a pic of her, oars in hands, because she knew her dad wouldn't believe her, without picture proof. I obliged. When she got tired, I took over again. We had tried letting Nina's boyfriend give rowing a shot, but we weren't about to make that mistake twice. No, we'd wait til later to do that. Two bridges and many smug kayakers later, we docked at another nice place, ate the cake, and had a nice break. Not that rowing was extremely hard, but when at a decent speed, it did strain the muscles a bit. The weather was decent. Not too hot and sunny, and not raining. I was feeling sleepy, but had a nice time, so I didn't let it bother me much.

It was time to return to the rental place. Had we continued on, we'd entered open water, and none of us were particular keen on doing that. Marie and I decided it was time to let the boyfriend have another go at rowing. The keyword is cordination, was a phrase uttered many a time. And admittingly, he got it down in the end. So Nina and bros, were speedtesting the canoe, and we were left to navigate the river at our own pace, which was fine. I was in the back, adding some weight to the boat, him in the middle, and Marie in the front, halfway laying down, trying to snap a picture of herself, with boat, greens and water in the background. At this point, a tourist tourbusboat kind of thing passed. It should be noted at this point, that Nina's boyfriend is Kenyan, and quite black. So they were met with a sight of two lazy white people, one of which self-absorbed with a camera, being rowed along by a black guy. I waved at the glaring faces, and we all laughed at the idea. Must've looked funny.

Eventually we docked, paid our dues, and went about our business. We went to Nina's house. I figured I should probably go home asap, and get some sleep, but as usual, I just couldn't get myself together. Instead, I crashed (with permission) in Nina's bed for a few hours. I woke up with a headache, and seriously tired. Sat in the sofa for a bit, and decided I should probably get going before I needed to stress and be annoyed with that. Hugged everybody goodbye, and went outside. It was pissing down with rain. Annoying! And work.. and I was tired. Argh.

As you will know, from the below entry, I made it through the night without total blackouts. I was tired, sure. But never more so than usual. They showed "Pi" on tv, and I got to watch that. It was interesting, but I think I'll have to watch it again under more controlled circumstances. It seemed slightly complicated. It's by the same guy that did Donnie Darko, a movie I really enjoy(ed). Anyway, that's a story for another day. This was the story of my boating day out. Remember kids, don't try anything you've just read, at home.