The Sunfish Goes Up the Creek

As I said, we've been loaned a sunfish to use for the summer, and Julia had an unfortunate first adventure on it. So yesterday, Adam was determined to have a "redo." I said Julia needed a day on the creek in her red boat. He said he'd go out with her, in the sunfish. But he had ulterior motives. We schlepped both boats over to the Wildlife Ramp public access here in town. Adam's in the sunfish:

Julia's adjusting her oars. Yeah ... he gets the sail, and she gets to row, but that's her choice.

Adam gets out on Smith Creek and immediately realizes something's not quite right with his sail. So he struggles with it.

Julia gets underway, and still he struggles with it.

He gets the sail up, but it won't stay up.

Uh oh. That looks bad. The sail's in the water.

See those storm clouds over their heads? Well, this is what the other side of the sky looked like:

Finally, Adam comes back to the dock and presents me with a broken piece. Two screws have ripped out of the sunfish deck. I dash to the Provision Company (Oh yeah ... Philip did that website!), dashed home for Adam's tool kit, and came to his rescue :) He fixed the part, and they were underway.

They had a much better day this time around! Julia soon realized that her daddy had a slight speed advantage, and he convinced her to leave her dinghy and oars at a friend's dock, and continue up the creeks on the sunfish with him. (Thus, his tricky plan to get her back on the sunfish was successful.) They had a grand time -- great wind, flying along, planing at times (that's when you're going so fast you're basically skimming along the top of the water), and getting rather wet. They had to tack on the way back, going into the wind. I think maybe she likes the sunfish again :)
Here's a short youtube video of a young man speeding along in a sunfish. I don't think Adam was doing the leaning thing -- haha!!

If you watch to the end, you'll get to see him use his TEETH! Yikes! I hope his dentist doesn't see this!