This post is going to be a bit of a chest thumper, so beware.  Anne and I have two sons, Dan and Dave and they are two fine young men.  I know that I am being a too proud papa, but sometimes you have to let other people know about your feelings.  Fortunately I have this blog, so I can let everyone know about my feelings.  This blog is my own little virtual soapbox and I love it.

I spoke with Dan about his sail boating adventures this week at the Cabin.  Banana has already posted about this and has a pretty good photo of the climatic event, but I was able to snag an interview with the protagonist.  Dan has been taking Betty’s old Whaler out on to the lake.  Where he learned to sail, I’m not really certain.  I’ve taken him out sailing on occasion over the years, but never all that often.  In Missouri we have an abundance of rivers, but not too many lakes are to be had.  We have mainly done canoeing over the years.  These family outings put him in good enough stead to go canoeing with Betty, Aimee and Robin on the Bowron Lakes in British Columbia.  I think that it was his friendship with Robin that taught Dan enough about sailing to be dangerous.

This week he first took the Whaler out to the Fickle Finger, a lighthouse that is between the US and Canada and is in between the two shipping channels.  I think that he took Annie on this voyage.  Whether it was being in such a small boat on such a big lake or maybe it was just all the spiders all over the just un-wintered Whaler, but Annie found this trip a bit scary.  Dan had several subsequent voyages, all without incident, until that fateful day.

The wind and the waves were up and by all accounts he wasn’t too far from shore, besides the wind was blowing him back into shore.  In fact he had to walk the boat out to chest depth in order to get far enough away from the shore to be able to launch it.  He was able to tack out well enough, but after he came about things started to get interesting.  I don’t think that he accidently weared the boat, because he spoke of waves hitting him a beam.  With a brisk and possibly variable wind he just got his boat swamped.

He was in eight or more feet of water when he went in.  He stayed with the boat and he had his glasses in a zippered pocket, so there will be no beach glass manufactured as part of this adventure.  He eventually got the ship righted enough that at least the mast was no longer acting as an anchor.  By this time, Annie had valiantly kayaked out to rescue him.  Meanwhile the rest of the beach creatures sat around and either gawked, kibitzed or tweeted.  By the time Annie arrived Dan had gotten the boat righted enough so that the sail didn’t drag anymore.  This actually caused Annie some problems because the Whaler wanted to go home now faster than she could paddle and kept butting her kayak in the stern.  Ouch!

It all ended well enough.  Probably the worst damage done was that Dan was late for dinner.  This post was originally envisioned to speak about both my boys, but as usual if you get Dan a-talking, he’ll suck all the oxygen out of the room.  Besides, Anne says, I shouldn’t jinx Dave.  Whoops!  😉

So I started off this post boasting about my sons,  All that I have delivered is a rundown on number one son’s capsizing.  As a parent, as a dad, you eventually learn to take a longer view.  I’ve stopped worrying about their grades, they are what they are and now their grades are their responsibility.  Likewise, their jobs, I cannot affect their work.  I really never had much hold on that venue anyway.  I just love them for who they are and who they will become.