Bozo's cousin...

...as it turns out, really does live in IL! Sunday morning and 6 boats remained of Saturday night's raft up. Most of the remaining assembled crew were in the water in response to the relentless heat and total lack of even the slightest hint of a breeze, when along came Commander Pontoon. Like his Portland cousin he passed the NO WAKE markers doing the exact speed required to get the largest possible waves flowing off his stern. His "seamanship" set our island of sailboats pitching and rolling, alternately jerking at the end of lines then grinding fenders, rigging perilously close to getting tangled. The few crew still on boats and below popped out of companion ways to see if a tsunami had struck our little land-locked lake.

I suspect C-P was clueless enough to think he was doing a good job of driving his barge. After all, he passed close enough that we could see the gold braided "Captain" hat sitting jauntily on his fat head. (Hat size; what did you think I meant?) It was likely a birthday or Christmas gift from his wife. Too bad she couldn't buy him a brain to go with it. (Okay, you caught me.)

I resisted the urge to unlimber my cordless drill, paddle over, and punch as many 2" holes in his hulls as I could manage before the battery went dead...I really am trying to get along better with my fellow man. Sometimes though, I get to thinking my fellow man is not keeping his half of the bargain. But in spite of the ugly noises made by the sailboats bouncing off each other, no real harm was done. So in the end I practiced a bit of American Zen and went back to enjoying the weekend.

Which, at first blush, wasn't an easy thing to do. There was some nice wind out of the North on Friday evening, which not only provided a bit of motivation for a brisk sail to anchor, it also dropped the humidity and temperature to pleasant sleeping numbers. But Saturday dawned with just a ghost of a breeze. It was enough to get Nomad off her anchor and out of the cove. But less than a mile later all movement stopped. Even the sea gulls were sitting placid on the motionless lake surface. By some serious perversion of the laws of physics the rising temps seemed to freeze everything it place. We folded our canvas and motored back to join the growing raft-up / jump in the water to escape the oven / party. The crew of S/V Gail Force included grand kids, while S/V Miss My Money and Quicksilver had young crew on board as well. They don't call me "Grandpa-T" but we had fun just the same!

So it was hot. (I should mention that Nomad's new sun shade / boom tent was a major success!) There was little sailing. (We covered a grand total of 8.2 miles all weekend, at least half done in Mr. MaGoo mode.) Deb even managed to get tangled up with a wasp while closing up the boat and has a sore hand to show for it. And yet, several times during the weekend I remember thinking...

"There isn't any place I would rather be than here. There isn't anything I would rather be doing than this."

Hard to complain about a weekend like that.