In a continuing display of how I have absolutely no work ethic whatsoever, although today was not officially a holiday for me as a UK employee, everyone in the US was off of work today, as it was Labor Day. Still slightly annoyed at my boss about causing me to lose out on a vacation day that I deserved, I resolved to answer a few e-mails in the morning and then make the most of a day where nobody at work was going to be pestering me anyway.
So I texted my friend Heather, and was unsurprised when she texted back that she was out on her boat, and invited me to come join her. I suppose suspicions should have been roused when she failed to text me back when I asked if I could bring anything, but regardless I packed my swimsuit and a beach towel into my bag, and then made my way out to the marina where I knew she anchored her boat. (I wanted to call and ask for directions, but I vaguely remembered where the marina was, and so figured I could just be resourceful and make it out there on my own).
Yet when I got to the marina, repeated attempts to call her yielded nothing, nor did texting. With a sinking feeling, I remembered that she'd mentioned that sometimes her phone did not get any reception when she was out on the boat. I repeatedly called and called, but it just kept going straight to her voicemail.
The tender then showed up to take people out to their boats, and I told him, "I'm supposed to be meeting a friend, but her phone doesn't seem to have reception. Do you happen to know them?" Unfortunately he confessed that he was just helping out, and was not the regular tender driver. And all I could remember was that they hadn't named their boat yet, and I vaguely knew what side of the marina it was on. Yet, the tender captain was at least a good sport, and said, "Well, if you want to go for a ride around the marina, we can go look for it!"
So we went off, and as we approached the spot where I vaguely remembered the boat was, I saw a slightly familiar figure sitting up on the prow of a boat that was blue-ish, as I remembered. So I yelled out, "Heather?" When I got a wave back, I excited told the tender captain, "We found them!"
As I pulled up to the boat, my friend exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, I was actually just pulling up the anchor and casting off, as when I didn't hear from you I didn't think you were coming. 30 seconds later and we would have been gone, you would have completely missed us!"
At times of extraordinary luck like these, you're tempted to wonder about the "what ifs". I could see that she hadn't been lying, it was all a very near-miss thing. What if that tender captain hadn't taken me out, what if I hadn't spotted them so quickly? But I just smiled and told her, "I must have been fated to come out with you today!" and we laughed about our incredible good fortune to have managed to meet up.
As the boat was already cast off and ready to go, we travelled out of the harbour and into the ocean (or the Long Island Sound, anyway). It was fun as we exited the harbour, as the boat throttle opened up, and my friend's 3-year old yelled, "Let's go fast, daddy!" And soon we were zipping up over the waves, the salt water spraying in our faces and the wind whipping our hair.
We arrived over at Port Jefferson harbour, which was absolutely clogged with boat traffic. People were coming over from Connecticut, barges were coming into the power station, and the radio absolutely started chattering non-stop with people all communicating with each other all over the harbour.
I suppose for my friends, this was old hat, but I was fascinated to hear all of the chatter, including one point where we could hear someone radioing that a boat was sinking, and then watching the harbour police boat race across the harbour to get to the distressed boat. All very dramatic, just on a sunny afternoon's boat trip!
The other dramatic bit came when the Port Jeff ferry pulled out of its dock and headed towards Bridgeport, and I was surprised at how many boats zipped in front of the massive ship that could so easily crush them. I asked, "How on earth does the ferry not hit them?" And my friend's husband replied, "Oh, it does! It hits sailboats quite frequently, actually!" I could easily see how that would happen, as the ferry was even bearing down on us for a bit, it moved surprisingly quickly!
We made it safely back out of the harbour, and then raced across the water again back to our home harbour. Once there, we jumped off the end of the boat to go swimming, which was a little bit chilly at first, but incredibly refreshing after we'd been in the water for a bit! It was too deep to stand, so we just had to float around and tread water, but it's funny how easy that is to do when you're swimming in salt water...
After we started seeing a few too many dead crabs floating (probably the result of a very high tide that had washed them down from the beach), we got back in the boat, and just continued hanging out until we finally had to acknowledge that the day was getting late and some little girls could probably use some dinner.
So we parted company, and I headed back home, where I saw that my dad had found our tennis racquets in the attic! So we headed over to the local high school and played a few games and volleyed a bit. My serve was really hideous, but we worked on it for a bit, and after losing many repeated games to my father, I finally managed to win a game! (After that I suggested that we go right back to volleying, so I could continue riding high on my victory!)
Eventually we came home to find that my mother had dinner all ready, and so we got to load up after our efforts out playing, and then went upstairs to watch the latest episode of "Mad Men" (one of the best shows on television these days, and quickly replacing "Gossip Girl" as my favourite source of fashion inspiration!
My friend's 3-year old was not as cooperative for picture-taking as my friend was!
In the end, a fantastic day out and loads of fun, the best way to take a sneaky vacation day!
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