Palm Beach

Hello everyone. I hope that your thanksgivings were happy affairs. Mike and I spent ours at his college friend's house and enjoyed a huge traditional thanksgiving dinner. I did muss being at home with my family, but not all was lost. We are still in Palm Beach with no plans of leaving. Work is easy, but life is a little boring here. I suppose that I need to find some stuff to do in the community to keep me busy. I don't think that I'll be able to sit around for the full winter, so I am going to look for other opportunities, both in yachting and skiing. Another job in yachting seems a bit unlikely as it is already the middle of the season and the few boats who are doing cool things already have a full crew. I'm going to send some emails out to old captains that appreciated me and see what turns up. I have also applied at several ski chalets in the French Alps. Its a bit late as the season has already begun, but I am sure that there will be some turnover. I'm just not sure that American candidates are going to be their first choice. I have also thought about moving out to join Luc and Brett in Steamboat. The header picture is one of Steamboat before a storm from a couple of years ago. Its such a good place and I can't wait to get back.

I found a cool program that turns pictures into vector images. The link is http://vectormagic.com/main/

UGA vs. Colorado at Nationals in Columbus, Ohio in 2006. We won 17-16.
Bull Sluice class IV on the Chattooga river. The 78 year old woman in front of me nearly died shortly after this picture was taken.
Here is a picture of the boat on which I work, Kaleen

SCUBA

Last weekend, Mike and I took our PADI Open Water SCUBA Certification class. It consisted of a 50 question multiple choice test, a 2 hour pool period and 4 ocean dives. It was just Mike, a girl about our age, the instructor and myself, which made for an easy course. As we were all comfortable underwater, we were able to spend more time exploring the reefs and the wreck. On Saturday, the two dives that we did were both to a reef at a depth of about 40 feet. We saw lots of cool tropical fish and all of the coral associated with reefs. On Sunday, we dove to depths of ~80feet at the deepest and explored a 150' wreck called "Ancient Mariner" as well as a another deep reef. It is quite an incredible feeling to sit on the sandy bottom and look up and not be able to see the surface. Though we were not supposed to be deeper than 60' nor to be swimming around inside the wreck, our instructor felt that we were competent enough and let us do both. At the wreck, we saw a few lobster, a wide variety of fish and an enormous manta ray. It was about 6 feet in diameter and casually swimming around the wreck. The 4 dives were anywhere between 25 and 45 minutes depending on our depth because one uses compressed air faster when one is deeper because the air is more compressed.

Speaking of which, an interesting thing happened when we were preforming out last decompression stop of the weekend. A decompression stop is pausing for a few minutes while ascending to allow some of the dissolved nitrogen escape from the blood stream. If this is not done, a painful condition called decompression sickness "the bends" could result. Throughout the weekend, the instructor had told us to let him know whenever our pressure gauges read less than 500 psi. Once mine dropped below, I showed it to him and he gave me the universal "OK" signal. We kept exploring the reef. At this point, I was not concerned because he was not concerned, and I figured that as it was a class, they would provide a much larger window than necessary in order to get to the surface. In another minute or so we begin ascending. I'm checking my gauge which is reading about 300 psi. Because we are coming from around 70 feet, we are slowly ascending to prevent the bends. I am occasionally glancing at my gauge, which is steadily declining over the next 5 minutes. We get to about 20 feet below the surface and the instructor indicates that we will begin our 3 minute decompression stop. At this point, I am looking at my gauge, which says about 50psi, and wondering if I have 3 minutes of air. I wasn't too worried because I felt like in an emergency, I could swim to the surface. Also, I felt like the gauge could work like a gas tank gauge in that one can get by for quite a while while on empty. Anyone that knows me well knows that this is a silly thing for me of all people to think as I have tested that particular gauge many times with unlucky results. Just after we begin the stop, I notice it becomes hard to breathe. Each breath becomes more and more difficult to draw until finally, there is definitely no more air in my tank. Uh oh. Luckily, we were all close to one another, so I reached over for the secondary air source on my instructor's tank and was able to breathe again. Though it was never that scary, it is a bit unnerving to run out of air. It was a good learning experience and will be the last time that I let such a thing happen.

South florida thanksgiving

Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it home for thanksgiving because we have a dinner cruise planned. I suppose that I am thankful that I still have a job. i will miss all of you and hopefully see you all soon.

Buckethead, Hashing and Jerk

I forgot to mention that I had the privilege of seeing Buckethead a week or so ago at a tiny venue here in Lauderdale. The opening act was a guy called That One Guy. We played this crazy harp thing that he made out of stainless steel piping, one bass string and some effects buttons. He could make a bunch of music for just being one guy. Later, he came out and played with Buckethead. It was good.

Last night, I went hashing for the first time. Basically, its a loose club of people who like to drink beer and run around. Its fairly weird but really fun. This is all the information that I had before I showed up last night. I had looked it up on the internet and found a hotline to call for info about upcoming hashes. There are usually about 5 or so each week anywhere between Palm Beach and Miami. So I called the number and found out about Hash. I learned that it costs $2 to pay for cheap beer and that we were supposed to meet up at a Library parking lot at 6:30pm in Hollywood. So I got my running shoes and showed up. When I got there there were already a few people standing around drinking beer, waiting as more people showed up. From what I could tell, there was not any sort of commonality among the hashers other than the fact that they enjoyed running and drinking beer.

At this point, people welcomed me as "Virgin Louis" and explained how things work. Basically, at each hashing event, there is one organizer called the "hare." This position rotates every week. The hare is responsible for bringing coolers, ice and some beer. We each gave the hare $2 bucks this time, though normally these things are BYOB + 1$ for the ice and beer for the beer stop. The hares are also responsible for setting the course. At around 7pm, they took off, reminding us to look for baking flour and banana peels to stay on the path. We followed 10 mins after. The hares left different kinds of markings that indicate different things. A single blob of flour is called a "plop" and generally signifies that you are on the right track. If you have found 3 in a row, then you are definitely on the right track. An "X" in the road signifies that the path could have turned in any direction. At this point, people split up and search for about 100 yards in search of more "plops" This makes it a bit more challenging, and because the guys in front are doubling back at the Xs, it also serves to keep the group together. A few of the guys ran with whistles and would blow it to help others find the trail. One guy ran with a conch shell in a side holster and another had a bugle. Some of the costumes were funny as well. Because this particular hash was a Banana theme, most wore yellow, one guy had a banana costume, a girl had a cub scout uniform "pub scout" and one guy wore only a banana hammock. The trail took us through many different side streets, across a bridge, through a hotel lobby and a beach bar. So the scene is 20 or so adults in strange outfits running absently through the streets and establishments of Fort Lauderdale sounding whistles and shells. Also at this point, i had one of those 3rd person views of my own life. Not in a negative way, but "How did I get here?" Eventually, we saw "BN" written in flour on the road, which means "beer near." We rounded a corner to find a a couple of the faster ones already at the beer check, which was a parking lot near the inter coastal. A 15-20 beer break ensued. At this point, Banana Hammock jumped in the water.
The whole group caught up and a few minutes later, the hares left again to make the trail, which led us back to the original parking lot for the ceremonial part. it involved singing, chanting, dancing and the eventual naming of Chiquita Mussolini. You will have to go to figure out what goes on. That ended at 9:30 or so and those who chose went to the "on after" at a bar for some late dinner.This is from the "On After." Everyone in the photo was along on the hash with the exception of the woman in the front. She is a nice stranger who joined the party.

All in all, I am very surprised that this exists and I had not previously known of it. It was very fun and I will definitely be back. Some of the hashes can get really intense and take the better part of a day to complete.

In other news, i rode my bike 12 miles to a Jamaican jerk chicken festival. It was really hot and I popped my tire, but the music and the chicken were both good. coconut water, on the other hand, is not delicious.

Boat Show

Heres a giant goose that protected the house at which we bought Mike a bike. The owner says that he just showed up one day.
Michael Neder and Beth Rowe got married. Ben began celebrating before the church ceremony.Brett post-wedding, pre-waffle house
This thing (a mudskipper?) tried to attack Luc as we waited for a ride the first night we were in town. It just kind of flops around to where it wants to go. This one wanted to cross a divided highway.


The past few weeks here have been hrd work as well as a lot of fun. We have been getting the boat ready for Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. The work has been waxing the paint coat, acid washing the teak wood, bleach cleaning the cushions and other tiring physical labor. We have had a good group of help on many of the jobs. My friend and former boss Tony from Steverino's pizza in Athens now lives down here and was a big help. The other two kids are day workers from a crew house and are a good time. Hard Timin' Simon is a kid from Oregon who recently got arrested for getting drunk and falling into the New River. He learned his lesson in jail. John is the other dayworker from texas and is quite possibly the funniest story teller that I have ever met. He has a great perspective on life, a great texas drawl and hundreds of phrases like "Man that engine room is slicker than boiled okra" and "Stand up straight, boy! A crooked spine is the Devil's rollercoaster" I've been over to the crew house a couple of different nights. It is a crazy place with 13 kids from all over the world living in a 3 bedroom house.

Mike and i have continued to visit South Beach with Lb for some good cuban food, surfing, kayaking, and topless beaches.

I made it up to Atlanta for the wedding of Michael
Neder and Beth. Ben and I made it up to athens for a night to see some friends and drink some beers. I was really only there for 9 hours or so and therefore didnt get to do all of the things that I would have liked to do. I'm gonna try to make it back soon.

We've been mostly stationary so that we can do work on the boat. We did make it out for a sea trial after we had some work done on the engines. This is the result of 8 foot seas that day. Everything that was not stowed was somewhere else by the end of the trial.We had a good time on the top deck trying to hold on as we occasionally burried the bow of the boat into the crests of some of the waves. We were about 35 feet above the water line and were still getting wet. Getting tossed around is fun for a bit, but days at sea like that would be pretty unpleasant. 35 foot seas, on the other hand, would probably not be fun at all.

The boat show happened and we were ready for it. we had worked through the weekend to finish everything. At the show, our boat was situated next to two other identical boats in the Westport display. The boat show was fun as there were plenty of cute girls and free food and drinks. Each night a different Marine/Yacht company threw a big parties. I got to see a lot of familliar faces that I had worked with in Newport. We gave a bunch of tours to potential buyers, byt we only had one guy with serious interest. He has been back and forth with the broker so many times that I have no idea what to think about weather or not hes gonna buy this thing. If it doesn't sell, it looks like the boat will stay in palm beach for the winter. As much as i have enjoyed this boat and the crew, I got into this whole thing with the hopes of seeing the world, so I might persue other options. Either Ill look into other, busier boats or Ill go somewhere where I can ski. The alps would be good, and I could hop on a boat in the Med for next spring/summer. I'd love some advice.

Mike and I just signed up for an Open Water SCUBA certification class. We also bought the movie "Open Water" about a disaster on a SCUBA vacation. We should be ready to dive after next weekend.
Luc makes the best of a calm wave day in Miami
LB and I find a treasure in a sweet nearby park called secret woods. Its a mangrove swamp filled with cranes, giant spiders and butterflies.

This is the city in which I live. I have found frisbee, some good friends, warm weather, the sea, and a free-sushi-during-happy-hour-place. So life is good. I hope that all is well every where else in the world.
This is from Peter Dempsey. My old team plays in the Classic City Classic in Athens this weekend. If you are around, try to make it out. It is the best college ultimate happening this fall. Sorry for the gap in posting. While I have been having fun and working hard, there haven't been any epic stories to record. Warm Winds and Following Seas

Fairhaven to Fort Lauderdle

On Monday night, the six of us and our boat pushed off from Fairhaven and began cruising south. The plan was plotted to follow along the continental shelf, keeping
us anywhere from 25 to 200 miles off shore. In order to continue traveling around the clock, we split up into three groups. I had the 12pm to 4pm and the 12am to 4am shift with
Mike's friend Chris from Boston. Luc got the 8-12 shifts with captain Mike and Peter and Mike got the sunset/sunrise shifts from 4-8. While it is nice to watch the sun rise and fall, 4am
is a hell of a time to begin anything. A watch shift involves watching the radar and charts for potential hazards, namely buoys, shallow water and other boats.
It is fairly empty once you get more then fifty miles off shore, but we have had to chance course to avoid some other fishing boats and cargo ships. Watch also involves
engine room checks every hour and plotting the course on a physical chart. Aside from the eight hours of watch each day, we are free to read, watch movies, play games, sleep, etc.
There have been some cool encounters with wildlife along the way. On the first morning just after sunrise, those awake were joined by 40 or so porpoise playing in the wake and jumping at the bow. Check out the
video. Later that day, we saw a smaller pod of porpoise, a jumping marlin and a jumping dolphin. Mike, who missed seeing all of these aquatic animal displays, claimed to have seen a mermaid.
The next day, we caught some 30-knot winds coming from a storm blowing off of Cape Hatteras and spent around 18 hours in 5-foot seas. This is very exhausting. No one got seasick, but no one really enjoyed the experience.
The next day, we found that we had two small finches that stowed away on the boat. They must have gotten caught in the heavy winds and were lucky to find a place to land. Luc was able to catch one of them a few moths and feed it.
We passed within 20 miles of Cape Canaveral and were able to see the two shuttles scheduled to launch on October 12th to fix the space station. On Friday morning, we arrived at the new river in Lauderdale and met up with the towboats to pull us up the river. We got in, did a four-hour wash down to remove all of the salt and finch poop. The shipyard is Roscioli and roughly 3 miles from the downtown area. It is a fairly industrial yard and has only covered slips. Our boat stays in a big enclosed room. This is good because it keeps it cleaner, but it also means that we are unable to work on the boat in the sun.
This weekend, we made it out to the bars, found treasure in a cool nearby park called secret woods and visited LB in South Beach for some surfing and surf kayaking. It was great and we will definitely be back to visit her. Peter left this morning for Atlanta. I really enjoyed getting to hang out with him. I think he might try to get into the industry as well. Luc, Mike and I are going to spend the day looking for a bike for mike, playing some ultimate with the local pickup group and watching some football. So, life is good and steamy down here. I will see many of you in a week for Mike and Beth Neder’s wedding. My car made it safely to Atlanta, which is good, because many people were convinced that it was going to get stolen and disassembled in a chop shop somewhere.

South

Tonight is the night that we depart for warmer waters. Luc Strickland and my cousin Peter have come along to help with the delivery. We leave tonight at 9pm and will go straight 1100 miles to Fort Lauderdale. It should take us 3 and a half days which would put us in Lauderdale on friday morning. Heres a last look at fairhaven. We went in to Boston when Luc first arrived for an incredible house party with Mike' s friends. They had a live band on the deck in the middle of south boston that could be heard from 4 blocks away.

Sea Bass

Heres some giant striped bass that we caught drifting just outside of boston. The bait was live eels.

Live every week like it's shark week

The summer season is coming to a close and it is beginning to get a bit crispy up here in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. It usually 60s or 70s, but with a bit of wind, the dewy mornings are chilly. Tomorrow, we will have our last trip of the season to nantucket. After that, we will prepare to head south to Fort Lauderdale to the big boat show. There will be 200 yachts in the show, with the biggest topping out at around 200ft with helicopter landing pads. With big boats come big crews, and from what i have heard, the boat show sponsered parties are always a good time. After that, however, our future is uncertain. The boat is for sale, so it could sell in Fort lauderdale, which would mean one of two things. Either the new owner has another boat with a full crew and will transfer his crew over to the kaleen, or he does not have a crew and will chose to keep the crew aboard as we already work together well and know the boat. If the former is the case, then I get a vacation and a chance to look for a new job on another boat. If the boat doesn't sell, we will probably go to the bahamas or the carribbean and do chartered trips down there. Either way, I am not worried. The worst case scenario is that I will move out to steamboat with Luc and Brett and spend a season skiing. So life certainly doesn't suck. In fairhaven, it has been more of the same. keeping the boat proper during the day, and then geocaching, sea snake snatching(eel hunting, no luck yet, but when we get one, we are gonna catch one hell of a striper), throwing a frisbee and some night time excursions to boston and newport. Yesterday I ordered a camera. Its the upgraded version of the one waterproof one that I had before, so hopefully I will be able to post some snorkling/scuba pics in a month or so. As for now, here is a geocaching picture of Ashley and I. She and chef Alex left yesterday to go to farmAid and then to Oklahoma before going down to Ft. Lauderdale.

Photos of my new house

Here are some fotes of the M/Y Kaleen. This past weekend, the owners came on board and we cruised over to Nantucket. They are a nice family with four kids in their late twenties/early thirties. As a deckhand, it was my job to help with the luggage and wash all of the salt off of the boat. Since the owners don't want us running around washing the boat while they are on it, we just have a few odd jobs to do, like filling the freshwater tanks and uncovering the cushions in the morning. Other than that, we had most of the weekend to ourselves. We walked around the island, found some treasure and went out to the bars at night. Since the owners have a couple of houses on Nantucket, theydon't sleep on the boat. They just come aboard for Alex's meals, all of which were 6 or 7 courses of five star restaurant quality food. It is really impressive to watch him work in the kitchen.Picture of the tender


At night, we would go out into the downtown bar scene, which is almost completely covered in pastels and seersucker. It reminded us of a little Disneyland. One day, Alex and I spent a couple of hours walking around the town in search of a seersucker cape. No luck, but I think we will make one for a return trip and it will be a big hit. The best outfit was a pair of slacks or chinos(definitely too expensive to be called pants) that had a salmon pink right leg and a canary yellow left leg and was covered in embroidered whales. This is where Matt Bledsoe will go when he dies.
On Sunday, there was a party hosted by the dock master to thank his crew and all of the boats who were around all summer. Raw oysters, tons of appetizers and a few kegs of beer ( I highlyrecommend Whale Tail, I think its local NE beer). This went on until dark, which was about the time that a drunk guy fell backwards off of the 10ft. dock into the water. We rescued him swiftly. After, Mike and I went out to a music venue only to find that they was no live music. there was, however, a couple of cute girls from Poland and Russia. I will send out wedding invitations when I clear the dates with my parents. The cruise back tofairhaven was a bit choppy but otherwise uneventful. We are waiting to hear if we are going back this weekend. If not, I might try to make it down to NYC or maybe to the much closer Newport for a night out.

Today is thursday and I have been on the boat for 4 days. Overall, I really like my situation here. I am the deckhand in a 6 person crew. The captain, Mike, is a really nice canadian guy in his mid- thirties. Then there is the first mate, also named mike, who I primarily work with in keeping the exterior of the boat clean and working. There are 2 stewardesses, Eda from Hungary and Ashley from Oklahoma, whose job it is to keep the inside of the boat clean and working. Lastly, Alex is the chef. He cooks several courses for every meal. So far I have learned that there are both good and bad parts in living on a yacht. Here they are:
Great Things:

I get hot meals for free every day, made from quality ingredients by a professional chef. If he does not cook for whatever reason, we go out to a nice restaurant with the boat credit card.
Rent is free.
I get to be outside all day every day. So far is has been warm and sunny. This may not always be the case.
the rest of the crew is pretty fun. I think that I can get along with anybody, but it would really suck to get stuck on a boat with crappy people.
We get to travel to where the weather is nice. We will be crusing around Nantucket this weekend and eventually head down to the huge boat show in Fort Lauderdale in October. Unless the boat gets sold.
Free Laundry
Free "Kaleen" clothes- T shirts, a fleece, a raincoat, some dryfit polos, some khaki pants
Mike and I have a shower attached to our room. The shower has an escape hatch. This means I can escape whenever I want.
I don't have to wear shoes ever



Not so great things:
I have a roommate, and we live in a room the size of a porta-potty. Its actually the size of a handicapped porta-potty, but that is still pretty small. My bed is the size of a casket.
Some asshat stole my flipflops off of the dock tuesday night. I left them in the shoe backet on the dock and someone snatched them. It is kind of a funny thing to steal from a $15 million boat.
The yachting community expects good hygiene. This is different from the collegiate and whitewater communities.
We usually start between eight and nine in the morning. This is much earlier than noon.

The boat itself is 130' long and weighs 290 tons. The boat holds 9700 gallons of diesel fuel and 1800 gallons of water. At a cruising speed of around 20 knots, it gets about 1/4 mpg. This means that our carbon footprint is roughly the size of New Hampshire.
I will put some pictures up on the blog once I get paid and can get a new camera.

Tomorrow, the guests will come aboard and we will cruise to Nantucket for a long weekend. I hope everyone is well.

I got a job! 130' Westport motor yacht called Kaleen. Ill be working with 6 other people, one of whom is a good friend from the boat safety/firefighting course that we took in June. I will begin work in Fairhaven on Monday morning. We will spend a month in Nantucket/Martha's Vineyard/Cape Cod area, then head south for a month in Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area and then go to the Caribbean for the winter. It sounds like a really cool crew and a fun itinerary.

In other news, David Wright is in town. Later today, a coupe of girls from Finland are coming into to couchsurf. Other than that, I am preparing to move my life into the small storage area that I will have once aboard.

Anyone wanna help us find some treasure? I made it close until my computer crashed and the puzzle reset. See what you can do

http://four.flash-gear.com/npuz/puz.php?c=v&id=2605971&k=34446581

Today is Tuesday, August 19th. I worked this morning doing provisions for Cocktails, a hundred foot motor yacht. It has been the best boat to work on thus far. I really like the crew and I have been getting fed as well as paid $20-$25/hour. This morning, my job was to goo with the chef to the grocery store to buy food and cleaning supplies for the upcoming week long charter. We spent $1800 in filling 5 shopping carts with a lot of delicious looking food.

This past weekend, my cousin Chris, Jenna and John Warner came into Newport. Chris came from Vermont Law school, Jenna from Manhattan and John from Maine. We went to the beach for some volleyball. On Sunday, we went to Frisbee, swam in the sea at the cliff walk and hung out on the porch and had a porch party. John is going to hang out for at least a week. This weekend, David Wright is going to be around as well, along with 2 Finnish girls from couchsurfing. I think that there are pictures from this weekend on Tony's camera. I will post them up when I get them. Tonight, I'm going to work at the IYAC. Hope all is well everywhere else.

August so far

I haven't written anything for a while. This is because I have been busy, both with work and adventure. It all began when I got a message from couchsurfers wishing to stay in Newport for the weekend. There were four different surfers from three different places. Monica came to town first. I picked her up at the bus station in town and took her back to the house. From there, my roommate Austin, his friend Kelly, Monica and I went to check out the cliff walk by bike ride and tried to find treasure on the way. We succeeded on one search but failed on another. I think that the second one was gone. Damn muggles.

From there we went to downtown to show Monica the nightlife. It was standard Newport insanity. On the way home was when perhaps the most memorable event happened. So there we were. Walking down the street near my house when we see a skunk. Skunks are small woodland creatures that look much like fluffy kittens. They cannot run, but instead waddle along. As a result of these two features, I neglected to respect the facts that skunks do not like to be picked up and they have the capability to create smells far worse than Thai food in the digestive tract. So i picked it up. foolish huh? The thing simultaneously spun in my hands, sprayed and bit me. As a result, I smelled like skunk for a while and learned not to pick up cute animals.

The next day was Friday. Monica and I took a bike ride to see the coast, look for some more treasure and do some snorkeling. We found one of the two caches we were looking for and and found a huge population of hermit crabs in the sandy, rocky bottom at Gooseberry beach.
In the evening, I got a call from our second couchsurfer, Nick, from Nottingham, England. Tony, Monica, Nick and I decided to head over to Flo's clam shack for some good New England seafood. Its calamari, scallops, clam strips, fish, and these clam balls. All of them are fried and delicious. i recommend.

That weekend was Folk Festival. I asked around for some boats to take out the the water front to watch the festival from there. We ended up with a kayak, a canoe and an inflatable walmart raft. We paddled out with Tony, Monica, and I to watch the music. It was a giant floating party for the first part of the day. Then, at around 2 or so, the sky erupted in a maelstrom of chilly rain. we sought respite under the hull of a fishing vessel, but it was incredibly cold and we decided to head into the festival and hop the fence. While we understood that this was illegal, we felt that we could justify searching for shelter. We got out of the rain and met up with Nick, who had a legitimate ticket for the weekend. The weather cleared up and we made it out to the muddy yet still populated stage area for a good Marley Brothers set followed by the Black Crowes. We met up with couch surfers 3 and 4 there as they had driven up for the festival from New York City. The day was great, until we tried to leave to find police waiting for us to get back to the boats. After much reprimand, they made us buy tickets and let us go home.

That night, my 2 roommates, the couchsurfers and I went next door to jimmy's. There was karaoke and a diverse variety of patrons including Bert, who somewhat resembles Mr. T. When asked why he had his sunglasses on in a dark saloon, he replied "The sun never sets on you when you are this cool." Yes!

the next morning was tired frisbee, then back to the folk festival. Marc and Allissa, the couchsurfers from new york, came along for the view from the water. This day was beautiful and police-free as we stayed out on the water. it was interesting, however, when we moved everyone into the canoe so that we could dump the raft and reinflate it. Canoes are top heavy and inherently tippy. We sunk immediately. We lost a few shirts and some sandwiches and Marc's phone is water-logged and potentially deceased.

Everybody stayed another night, but as a result of a busy weekend, we all just hung out at the house.

The next day, Nick, Marc and Allissa left to their respective destinations. Monica, Tony and I drove first to Boston to pick up Tony's best friend Mike. We continued on to northern mass to drop Monica off at home and eat a homemade meal with her family. Couchsurfing is good people.

That night, and for the next as well, we traveled around Massachusetts camping at a couple of different campgrounds, stopped at a couple of cool scenic spots, went fishing(caught a small catfish) and slept in the rain. The next night, we were tired of sleeping in wet conditions so we decided to visit Boston for the nightlife. On the way, we picked up Monica (She was bored at her parents house). Unfortunately there aren't any pictures of this excursion nor the camping as my camera met a watery demise in one of the most ill-fated days of my entire life which was at the jazz Fest the following weekend. See later story. Heres a picture of Turner's Falls

In Boston, we looked at hotels but due to their high cost, we decided to find a cheaper place to stay. Tony and mike were in a fraternity at USF, so we looked for it's Boston counterpart at MIT. They were cool guys, gave us a great room of couches in which to sleep, and showed us some cool bars around town. Salad fingers came to meet us as well.

The next day was Thursday, and I had to work at the IYAC, so dropped Monica off and headed back to Newport. I worked on a boat the next day and hung out that night, looking forward to Jazz fest. While it is normally a 2 day festival, our Saturday day was so eventful that that was it for us. It began with a larger than sensible group for our limited space. The group was Tony, Mike, Salad Fingers and his cousin, Katie and Kim from frisbee and Tony's friend from work, Hillary. She brought her Puggle puppy. She rides in Tony's boat with her dog. Salad, Mike and I ride in the canoe and pull Katie and Phil in the the walmart boat. Kim paddles in his kayak. We make it out there fairly uneventfully, watched some jazz and enjoyed the sunny day. Towards the end of the day, We decide that it is time to head back so Salad and his cousin paddle the canoe, Tony and Hillary pull me, Katie and Mike in the inflatable boat. Because a kayak is not meant to pull a boat with three people, this was hard work for Tony. Instead so discussing a reasonable alternative, a tired tony declares that he is going to swim the half mile back to the beach and demands that I get into the kayak. He tries to get off of the kayak, but instead flings himself, Hillary and her puggle puppy into the sea. So I get into his kayak and we begin again. Tony begins his impossible swim back to shore. He quickly tires and grabs onto Salad's canoe. For a tug. Because this gets a large amount in his mouth, he demands entry into the canoe, Despite pleas by Salad and Phil, Tony pulls himself into the canoe, which immediately begins to sink. The cooler, back packs, sandals and trash scatter in the sea. We spend a few minutes swimming around, gathering all of our belongings that we could and attempting to right the canoe. we get picked up by coast guard and taken to shore. Tony, due to all of the salt water that he has swallowed, spends the trip vomiting off of the side of the coast guard boat. So we all make it back to shore with most of our stuff, minus my camera which slipped out of my bag. Too bad, but its just a thing and can be replaced with a couple of shifts at the bar.

But our story doesn't end here. We load up the boats onto the car and begin organizing our belongings. When it is time to leave, we find that the keys are in the driver seat. This is usually isn't a problem when the doors are unlocked. Today, the doors were not unlocked. We just began laughing, because, what the hell? Not our day. We called AAA and walked over to the seaside park where we found some of our friends throwing a frisbee. We joined them and and got a 4v4 game going. Because this wasn't on a sports field, there were a couple of obstacles on the field. Namely, a large steel grate. Tony was the only one unfortunate enough to find the grate, stuff his toe inside one of the holes, do a front somersault and effectively pull his big toenail up and off of his nail bed. In his pain, he proceeded to chicken dance/walk around the park moaning and muttering. This was the hardest that I have laughed since i moved to Newport and continued to laugh for 25 minutes. Finally AAA came, we unlocked the car and went home. It is two days later, Tony is still in an incredible amount of pain and I am still laughing every time i am reminded of the day that was never meant to be.