Wayward Dinghy

It’s early morning and Byron is on deck wiping down varnished areas from the previous nights rain. He waves a good morning to cruisers Jen & George in their dinghy as they leave the shore and head back to their boat anchored out several boat lengths away. He watches as they disembark. Byron continues his wipe down process.

Moments later he glances up and notices the dinghy drifting back. He thinks to himself, “Wow, they must have a really long painter (line that attaches dinghy to boat).” As he watches, the distance continues to grow and it become clear that someone forgot to tie the dinghy off. Oops!

George is right there but looking down appearing to be working on something else and has not yet noticed the wayward dinghy yet. Byron yells at him to get his attention, but he doesn’t hear. He must have music on or something. He calls several more times and when George finally looks up, Byron points. In the stillness of early morning, “Oh god!” comes floating over the water. In the next few seconds a third voice says with some feeling, “Not me!!”. This was most likely their new guest and deckhand Matt.

There is a splash, and George is in the water making like an olympic swimmer after the dinghy. He eventually catches up, climbs aboard, starts the outboard motor and putters back to the boat. When he arrives he ties off the tender(hopefully with a better knot this time). Silence follows and a stern tone of voice that easily carries across the water to our boat, “Bad dinghy.... Baaaad dinghy!”

There is an unwritten rule that the captain is never wrong. That might be the case but we hear later it does not prevent the crew from awarding him the nickname, “No Tie.” I don't think they are describing his lack of business attire.

We have fine quality entertainment always happening out here(and it’s on our big screen in Hi-def).