Ahoy There, Mateys!

It's the Tall Ship festival in Lunenburg. Charlie and I went down to the docks to explore some of the visiting vessels. We watched sails unfurling, sailors climbing the rigging, and boats cruising in and out of front harbour. Charlie knows the name of a dozen kinds of boats--dinghy, dory, trawler, sloop. It's a constant source of bemusement to my corn-fed, Midwestern landlubbing self to see how connected he is with the marine environment. As we stood at the edge of the crowd a solitary man paddled by. I pointed him out. "Look Charlie, a kayak!" The man corrected me. "Actually, it's a dory-kayak", he said. And so it was, a wooden dory body with a covered, kayak-type top. A very Lunenburg creation.

Charlie's favorite boat, of course, was the great big bouncy gym shaped like a boat on the dock. He jumped up and down yelling, "Aaargh!" with the rest of the pirates. He loves to run around the house being a pirate, too, in his little pirate costume. I'm already assembling my defenses for the "why we can't get a parrot" discussion!