On the Treadmill of the Sea

When we woke up this morning, it took me about an hour and a half to convince Bob that he can, indeed, dye my roots. After a lot of hemming and hawing on his part, I mixed up the hair dye. We went outside so we wouldn't make a mess in the cottage and he began parting my hair, coloring, parting my hair coloring. I stopped him a few times reminding him that if he got any on my skin (face, neck, ears) he should wipe it off immediately. He complained about the plastic gloves being too small for a man and proceeded to put them on, ripping both of them. I think that during the entire process, he was holding his breath. I stayed outside while he put the timer on inside. When it was almost time for me to rinse, I came in and noticed that he had gotten almost as much on my face and ears as he had in my hair. Oh well. Taking care to make sure not to stain the shower curtains, walls, or anything in the rental, I turned toward the shower wall and rinsed. After drying, I discovered that most of my roots, with the exception of some gray hairs around my hairline, were covered. Thanks, Bob.

Then Bob took some time finalizing our plans to take the rubber boat on its Maine trip 2 maiden voyage. One utterance, "I don't like the way that battery is charging" gave me pause, but I trust my man. Once he had carried the heavy battery, the motor, the seats, the oars down to the boat which he had already taken down to the water yesterday, he called that he was ready. The wind had whipped up, but he seemed confident. There were some whitecaps on the water, but, after all, we had a motor and we weren't paddling.

After a few false starts because of rocks on the shore and seaweed, we were off--it was a very slow takeoff, but the motor was working.

  Oh Captain, my Captain!

 Despite fighting the waves head-on (I was in the bow), we were on our way. I spied something in the distance and it dove. We kept our eye in the area and saw as he surfaced two harbor seals (Phoca vitulina). One had seen us which meant he would not surface close by again. We saw them later, but they were further away.


Bob tried to get us back to shore because the winds were getting worse (we found out there were gusts of 18 mph --which is a lot for a boat like ours). However, we weren't making much headway. Yesterday, while kayaking, I observed the phenomenon that had me believing, if I looked ahead while paddling, that I was making no progress. When one is kayaking, or doing any kind of boating (especially when one expends great efforts and progress is important), one should always look to the side, to see how objects on the side are passed rather than looking ahead at the goal. If one looks ahead, it seems that no progress is being made; when one looks to the side, it is obvious that things onshore are being passed. However, Bob realized we were making very little progress and decided the battery was dead. Well, that's why we had paddles. As hard and fast and deep as we paddled, the wind and the outgoing tide kept pushing us out. Now, understand that we could always wait until tide when in and then we could wade through the mud back to the cottage shore, but we were getting sunburned and we had already been out for two hours (paddling for at least one of those hours). Both of us were exhausted and no closer to the cottage. We argued strategies and finally, we both agreed to try to paddle or let the tide move us to shore, even if that shore was down the bay quite a bit from our destination--our cottage. I would say we paddled for for two and a half hours, but we were stuck on the treadmill of the sea. Even looking sideways, that one white house seemed to stay in the same place (which meant so were we). Finally, we did let the sea take us toward the shore though far from our destination.

At this point, Bob decided that he would get out of the boat and pull me and the boat along the shore.

This was a very difficult feat because Bob could not tell the depth of the water. A few times, he fell off the continental shelf and into the water (55 degrees by the way), but he insisted that I stay in the boat. There were some perilous sections (rocks) and we were trying to save the boat from gashes from the rocks. Bob often broke out in song--the Volga boatsman (Yo Heave Ho) song and an old camp song, "Our paddles clean and bright, flashing like silver. Swift as the wild goose flights..." in his rich bass voice (forced, of course).

 At times, I felt like Cleopatra on her royal barge, especially when i was yelling out instructions to him. Eventually (FOUR AND ONE HALF HOURS LATER), we reached the cottage. Thanks, Bob.

I rewarded Bob by allowing him to take an extra long nap, without interruption. I went outside and watched General Hospital via Slingbox for only the second time in two weeks.

We were awaiting word from our housesitters about our singing (screaming) air conditioner. We have two of them (one for upstairs and one for downstairs). The upstairs one was screaming (Kayla sent us a recording of what it sounded like) and was probably driving all of our neighbors to call the HOA to complain. So, this morning we called our service company. They couldn't make it out until tonight and, of course, they didn't have the part. So, our poor housesitters have to sleep downstairs and keep the upstairs air conditioner off. The repairman is hoping to have the part tomorrow or the next day. UGH! Why does this always happen when we're gone--cause we're always gone?

Tomorrow, shopping for our company arriving on Friday. Wednesday dinner with the McCowans (and a sleepover so Jenn can take us to one of her favorite quirky breakfast places). Then home Thursday for cooking for company arriving Friday.

That's all folks.

Just one of the many faces we miss--our beautiful Ana Isabella Furlong!