Vacation Part 3 – Bay Beach Tuesday!

This is the day we pulled out the boats, oars and life jackets and headed over to the bay to play the grandpa way! Grandpa has always enjoyed sailing and canoeing and so he brought his sailing canoe, rowboat raft and the Snark so we can all have a go at them. It’s pretty fun.

The sailboats have been growing on me. A few years ago Doug took me out in his sailing canoe and I don’t think it was rigged as well as it is now. It was tipsier and the boom was in the way threatening to knock anyone out cold who got in the way of it. So I have always been hesitant to get into it. Last year grandpa took some of the older grandchildren out in it but not without a lot of fear from me about the kids’ safety.

This year it was better for some reason. Maybe because the kids were older and already had taken a spin in the sailing canoe or maybe because I was feeling braver. Probably a combination of the two.

I even got brave enough to take the little Snark out and try to sail it for the first time by myself. That was interesting to say the least.

Anyway, we all went down to the bay beach. The kids had a lot of fun playing and swimming in the water.

The babies played in the sand.

Alan took Gabby for a sail in the Snark.

I took Katherine out in the rowboat.

We took lots of pictures:

Great Grandpa took in and enjoyed the whole scene:

  

I hope Grandpa Dick enjoyed it. I love these pictures of him watching us play and taking in the atmosphere. He looks kinda like he belongs here! :)

And we watched a butterfly flutter all around us as we played.

It always seemed to me that Grandma Taber – Susan  - enjoyed the times when her family all got together and, most specifically in this case, our time at the beach. It was a calm relaxing time and one chock full of picture opportunities. One of my memories of her was that she always had her camera nearby to take lots of grandkid photos. She loves them so much.

The butterfly reminded me of the story Doug shared before her passing of a butterfly struggling to free itself of it’s chrysalis. When it did it was strong, beautiful and free!

I watched that butterfly and felt like it was a sign that grandma was there watching her grandkids enjoy this time together. I don’t think she would have missed it. :)

Well, all was fun and calm, at least for the most part. We had a brief adrenaline pumping incident when a child had gotten too far into the water on the kick board and fell off of it. Thank goodness for an email sent before the beach week that brought it to our attention to watch the kids more closely.

And then we had another scary incident when another child had gotten too far out in the water. In a boat.

I had taken the Snark out for my first time. I was nervous because I didn’t know how to sail and I was hoping to control it enough to stay fairly close to shore in case I got knocked by the boom or something. That thing is hard to maneuver and the boom will smack you pretty good when the wind shifts if you’re not careful. The rudder is also hard to work because you have to reach behind you with one hand to steer it while directing the sail with the other. Well, that’s what I thought anyway. It wasn’t until later in the week when I saw Manahi operate it by sitting sideways. He looked much more comfortable that way! Why didn’t I think of that? haha!

So I was sailing around in the Snark. Gabby had decided she wanted to try out the rowboat herself with no adult help. It didn’t occur to anyone that she didn’t have the arm strength to row it all by herself but we did tell her to stay close to shore. That doesn’t make much sense now that I think about it.

So Gabby and I are both out there. I’m trying to stay near her but not too close because I didn’t want to collide with her. But after a few minutes she says “mommy, I can’t do this!” So from my boat I give her the best advice that I can but to no avail. Meanwhile, she’s drifting out into the bay away from shore. When I realized what was happening, I don’t think anyone else had yet. They hadn’t heard her say “I can’t do this.” So I maneuvered my little sailboat right up to her rowboat and did my best to try to grab the rope that was tied to the rowboat. Only, every time I released the rudder I’d lose control of my boat or if I released the sail it threatened to thwack me. I didn’t have any way to lower or tie the sail and I was getting water in my boat because the wind caught hold and spun me around fast enough to have water come in the back. Now a Snark can only take so much weight. I was worried about water in the boat weighing it down.

But I’m still trying to get hold of the rope and I did partially. I could have had it by that point. Unfortunately the rope on the rowboat was still wrapped up nice and tidy and tied up. We usually let that out so we can tug the boat behind us on shore and tug little kids in it. We hadn’t done that yet. I hate that I’d thought about doing that before Gabby got in the rowboat in the first place but I didn’t. I’d been distracted or something. But, if that rope had been un-tied I could have gotten it and tied it to my ankle and kept her near me while either I got us both back to shore or I kept her from drifting out further so someone can swim out and get her.

I couldn’t get the rope though! By then I think Alan noticed what was going on and relying on his scout lifesaving merit badge – reach, throw, row, go with support – he grabbed a kick board and sent off to get her. By that time, she’d started drifting out away from me. Worried about making things worse in that boat that was difficult to control, I set off to try to bring it back to shore. I knew Alan would get to her. The last thing I’d said to her was to stay IN the boat.

By the time he’d gotten to her he had to swim quite a distance. He was really worn out. He was glad to have brought the kick board because he wasn’t sure he would have gotten that far without it.

Grandpa and Aunt Christina at the same time grabbed the sailing canoe and sailed out to them and Uncle Manahi ran down the beach and onto the pier to get to where he could jump into the water to get her if there was danger of her drifting out to sea.

It was a great rescue. Poor Gabby was terrified but she handled it well. I could only stand on the beach and watch the group all clustered together way out by the pier, more than halfway down it (and it’s a really long pier). They huddled there for a while and I was worried about what could be causing them to be there for so long. I thought Gabby was fine but was worried about Alan and his marathon swim. Had something happened to him? There was a small crowd that I could see gathering on the pier where Manahi was standing watching over the side. The minutes went by too slowly and I was killing myself over not being able to grab the rope on Gabby’s boat and then leaving her there. But the group broke and I could see they were heading back to shore tugging the rowboat behind them. They had Alan and Gabby climb into the canoe with them. The reason it took them so long, besides moving Gabby to the canoe was to give Alan a rest too. He was pretty tired still when they got back.

The one reassuring thing in this story is that Gabby had a lifejacket on. And she knew to stay in the boat. That is one rule we always abide by – you MUST wear a life jacket if you’re going to take a boat out.

Lessons learned! Kids must take sailing and rowing tests before being allowed to be in a boat without an adult I think. Even if, which is I think what we thought, there are plenty of adults to catch her before she got too far out. I think also, while a child is learning to control the rowboat an adult needs to either be in it with them or holding onto that rope (that never got let out) and walking with it. Third, I think, that even if a child seems reasonably able to handle the boat, that rope should always be let out in case it is needed to rescue the boat and whoever is in it again. Had that just been done this wouldn’t be much of a story I think. Unless I couldn’t for some reason get that sailboat back to shore.

Which I heard later was a huge feat in and of itself! Doug said that I won the Captain Nemo award for sailing it back to shore against the wind and Grandpa Dick said I have some really good talent for sailing given that was my first time to sail it. REally? Cool! I thought I was just having a really hard time and when Gabby had drifted away from me so that there was nothing else I could do, I just prayed that I could get that thing back to shore so that I wouldn’t have to be rescued too!

Exciting times! yeah, um, this is vacation, it’s not supposed to be THAT kind of exciting. Thankfully that was it for the week for scary rescue moments. whew!

Later in the day Alan took some of the kids back to the bay beach during low tide to harvest some bait to go fishing. He thought maybe Grandpa Dick would like to do that with some of the kids later. We had fun picking up conch shells and razor clams, playing with hermit crabs that we found and humming to our snails so they’d come out and tickle our palms. Here are a couple pictures, not very good though because I’d gotten sunscreen or something on my lens but I think worth placing here.

 

They did find the grandfather of all Conch. The thing was massive, at least compared to the others they’d found. Unfortunately I’d put my camera away and didn’t take any of those pictures. Maybe next year. But they figured a Conch that survived long enough to get as big as it did deserved to be put back into the bay and that is what they did.

I am thankful that at the end of this day, everyone was back together all safe and sound. Oy! Let’s not do that again!