Birthday Adventures

On Tuesday, Sam was NINE years old! Monday night, we had cake for dinner. Sam went to sleep excited about the day ahead. Tuesday morning, we got out of bed at six and I began issuing orders: Get that Lego up off the floor! Take the sheets off your beds! Swab those decks, mateys! Eat these scrambled egg sandwiches! Clean the toilet! Hurry up or we'll go Down de Islands without you! Sam, Chas and Issa worked like troopers, and Max packed and re-packed his bag.

At about quarter to eight, Grandma called to wish the Birthday Boy the best day ever. "Well! It's a good thing you called. We would have forgotten Sam's birthday entirely!" Sam spent the rest of the morning giggling, "I can't BELIEVE I forgot my own birthday!"

We gave him his card. And we kissed him and told him he was the best kid in the whole world... But what kind of parent forgets their Son's Ninth Birthday?? After talking about it all week??

Yesterday, Sam had a Nine-Year-Old Adventure. Somehow, (The details of the incident are fuzzy) the Laser Dinghy got away from it's mooring, capsized and dropped it's rudder into the sea where it (the rudder) promptly sank. Sam was there at the time, (mysteriously) and when the Laser mysteriously righted itself and took off with the wind in it's partially furled sail, Sam shot after it in the kayak. He paddled like a maniac till he caught up, lashed the two vessels together, and, like any sailor worth his salt, yelled "MummmaaAAAAYYYyyy!" and waited for rescue. The wind snatched him in his rudderless raft and he began the long journey to Venezuela. He was making some good knots, too!

That's speed, you land-lubbers.

Sam was wise: He was wearing a lifejacket and knew better than to try paddling against the wind in a rudderless raft. He sat tight and didn't panic. He definitely looked sheepish when rescued. The rudder was dived up by a team of crackshot snorkel divers, who stayed very close together in the deep water and got in each others' way. Important lesson learned: Even when you are all of Nine, the wind and the sea can beat you easily.


Comments

BlueBella said…
Oh I'm so glad to hear you got your strapping 9 year old sailor back safely! Happy Birthday big man!
Anonymous said…
Firstly Congratulations on your award from Melissa!

As for the rudder - an infamous Laser flaw - they sink really beautifully!
...we tie ours on....I'm sort of hoping the mice will have eaten the sails this winter...and save me from a summer of squishing myself into a wetsuit!
Well done Sam for the naval rescue - and happy birthday!
Nan Sheppard said…
Hen, you gotta leave that wetsuit there (ugh, cold...wet...) and come sail in our sea. Sean and I learned to windsurf in England in a LAKE in RENTED WETSIUTS which were always wet and kinda smelled like pee. Eew. The rudder, of course, "WAS tied on! It WAS!"