In loving, living memory, John Melançon 1928 – 2007
So I did not move the boat. Dan took the bullet for me.
After Grandpa sided with Judy on hiring a captain, even after it was discovered at the last minute that -- quite the opposite of the original claim -- the insurance company would not cover damage caused by a licensed captain, I resolved not to be party to the fiasco.
It's fun to be right, as long as the disasters predicted are small-scale (a bad voyage as opposed to global warming).
Captain Ron bumped Grandpa's boat into another boat twice (same boat) first thing leaving the dock in Sesuit. Dan never said a word, he said. Did jump up to push off the boat the second time.
The wheel would spin when he stopped to look at his handheld GPS.
Missed two bouey's going in to Welfleet Harbor, so almost hitting Billingsgate, until Dan spotted them.
There was a small fishing boat in Grandpa's slip. Judy hadn't checked it out-- getting Wellfleet harbor ready for our arrival was part of Ian's and my plan.
Which was actually fortunate, because Cap'n Ron (even with the able help of "Danny Magellan," as he called him) was so bad at docking the boat he could never have gotten it into the slip, especially not with the wind (Dan said he planned to have Dan tie the boat onto a pillar -- which would have likely broken the pillar, and if it were to pivot into the slip in any useful way, the laws of physics too).
On the nice, easy, side dock job he had to do he never got the boat within 8 feet of it. If Mom weren't there to grab the rope and tie the boat on, and then Dan made a fantastic leap once it was close enough to bring it the rest of the way in (still back much farther than it should have been, could have been pulled up more), with Ron yelling uselessly (and rather like Grandpa, really) they said they'd never have docked.
All in all great fun for me to miss. Unfortunately all I did with my suddenly "free day" was read a Redwall book mom got for Dan, "Loamhedge" (but that he already had, she wasn't happy when I one-upped her by giving him Lord Brocktree, which he didn't have).