Sailing in St. Mary's

On Saturday I went on an outing with The Navigators, which is a campus Christian group at University of Maryland. We took a trip down to St. Mary's County, to a family's house that has connections with our group. The house is situated on an inlet of the Chesapeake Bay.

We had a ton of fun. It takes about an hour and a half driving from College Park, MD. We began our day around 1PM playing volleyball on a grass court in the front yard. When the boats were ready, we all went down to the dock behind the house. Since there was limited room, I didn't get to go out on the first pass. One boat was a sail boat, which held about 17 people, and they went on a long cruise, which I'm told was a lot of fun. The other was a mid-sized motor boat, which took about 9 people on a shorter journey.

Part of the reason I stayed off, though, was that I really wanted to go canoeing. So I found a partner, Aaron, to go with me. We met up with a second canoe filled with three girls and had some splashing battles. We rowed around the whole inlet until we reached a line of buoys which indicated the beginning of high-speed traffic. Upon reaching that, we spun around, splashed the girls, and returned to the dock.

Soon after, the motor boat returned. The next trip would be for tubing. So I joined this group presently, although I had no spare clothes. Basically, a water skiing cable was attached to the back of the boat and an inner tube was tied to the end of it. A victim would climb onto the inner tube and wait to be dragged by the boat. The driver, Dennis, turned out to be extremely sadistic, and took much pleasure in going at full tilt in circles until the passenger in tow was flung off the inner tube! But this was a lot of fun, and a challenge to hang on. Everyone on the boat got their turn to be whipped around and tossed in the wake of the boat.

After everyone had taken their turn we started back, with me lounging out on the front of the boat, letting myself air dry. Back at the house, dinner was about to be served. We had dinner consisting of grilled chicken, various salads and pastas. A truly American meal. Then, we listened as two of the family spoke(Dennis, our boat driver, being one of them) about their lives and their faith. We had pie and cookies for dessert, and then watched Matt fire off his potato cannon(powered by propane). We played basketball, table tennis, and volleyball, for another hour or so, cleaned up a bit, said goodbye, and went back home.

A very nice day I must say. And yes, Rachel went too. She got to go on the sail boat cruise! Lucky her :-P People who haven't seen Blade Runner should see it. And I'm starting a new book, Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, which is the second book in his Mars series, which begins with Red Mars.