Trailing Along

I love rowboats and dinghies.

My grandfather always had a red rowboat to row down the river behind his home. The boat was one of those heavy wooden boats, impossible to lift onto shore, but, on the plus side, no amount of rambunctious behaviour on the part of his three granddaughters could tip it over. So, we’d trail up and down the river on our afternoon Huckleberry Finn adventures in that lovely red boat. My grandfather puttered in his garden; safe in the knowledge that we were well capable of surviving the mutinies, treasure hunts, and lost-at-sea adventures and were bound to return when once we were hungry enough.

My father was a sailor. We didn’t actually own a sailboat for many years, but my father had an older friend, Frank, who was retired, childless and a lot of time on his hands, and would kindly lend us his boat for a few weeks in the summer. In payment, my father willingly skippered Frank’s boat (with Frank as crew) on all the spring, summer, and autumn racing series and weekend regattas. My father also did all of the spring upkeep on the boat.

When we sailed off for a few weeks, my father would bring along a dilapidated dinghy to trail behind us during our summer travels on Lac Louis, Lake Champlain, the Thousand Islands, or Lake Ontario. The dingy was used to transport us from our mooring in some quiet harbour to land so we could buy new food supplies.

We’d also float along the coastline with it, or row over and explore any nearby islands. Overall rather sedate occupations. Yet, there were the leaks, the lost oars, the unknown riptides, and the sea monsters below that occupied our imaginations and spoke of impending disaster.