This past weekend we brought our Boston Terrier, Finster, out onto the water on Vintage Viking. He had been down Memorial Day weekend and he really enjoyed being at the marina, meeting all the new people (and their dogs too!). Jesse took Mom and Finster for a ride in his boat, and Finny had a blast. He likes to sit up on the front like a bowsprit, gazing out over the water. "Look at me....look at me...!!" he appears to be saying.
I came down to the boat Saturday just after noon. The were several things I wanted to do around the slip and on the boat. It is amazing how the 'little jobs' can add up and take an entire afternoon. But I can't think of a better way to suffer through work than t be at the marina and on the boat. A quick jaunt to the grocery store, stop at the RedBox video rental machine and back to the boat just in time for Alice, Jesse and Finny to arrive. Cook a steak or two on the grill, a little quiet time and then off to sleep.
Sunday morning I cooked breakfast for everyone. Finny kept pacing up and down the dock, but not for a 'nature call'. He wanted to get going. So as I cleaned up from breakfast, Alice & Jesse ran to get some things at the store that I had forgotten the day before. By noon we were out of the slip and heading for a local anchorage, Tices Shoal, to spend the afternoon. I thought I would be good for Jesse to take his boat to explore the numerous coves and beaches, but it was a bit choppy on the Bay, with a brisk breeze. So I set up a bridle, and took 'Little Vike' in tow across the bay towards the western shore of Island Beach State Park.
We took Double Creek Channel towards Barnegat Inlet. Barnegat Inlet separates Long Beach Island to the south and Island Beach to the north. the southern half of Island Beach, from Seaside Park to the Inlet, is a protected State Park. There is virtually zero development along this stretch of the island, except for a few small buildings for various Audubon and Meteorological instrumentation and monitoring. This is what I imagine the entire Barnegat Bay area looked like 75 years ago. Just north of the convergence of Double Creek, Oyster Creek and Barnegat Channels is the area called Tices Shoal. During the summer this is a popular party/rafting area and it gets pretty crowded at times. It was still early in the season so there were only a few single boats, and a rafting party of about five Sea Ray Sundancers. It turned out that the owners were all related and came here often.
I anchored Vintage Viking a safe distance off of the Shoal. This area is aptly named, and during periods of extreme low tide some less-prudent boaters find themselves grounded on the soft sand as the waters of Barnegat Bay flood out to sea to be recharged and then return 6-1/2 hours later. If you have nothing else to do, I guess sitting aground for 4-6 hours could be fun. I just don't like the idea of all the weight of a boat resting on the rudders, props and shafts. These Sundancers must have either prop pockets tucked up into the hull or were outdrive models, because they were there all day and i could see them heel over at slack low tide.
Jesse got Little Vike ready, and he took off to explore. He had trouble at first finding enough water to land his little boat onto the shoal, but he eventually went around the far side of the rafted Sundancers and found an area he could beach the boat. After an hour he returned to get Mom and Finny. Off they went in his boat. I was confident in his boating skills, and we were in a somewhat protected area just off Oyster Creek Channel so the big boats didn't get in his way, or vice verse. Once again, Finny felt as though he was a bowsprit, guiding his vessel to an unknown shore.
The three of them spent over an hour playing in the tidal pools of water. For a puppy, this little dog is very well behaved on a boat, even the small dinghy with two people in it. Our problem is keeping him IN the boat. He wants to jump on and off at his leasure. This is fine when they're on a shoal beach and the water is a few inches from the gunwale. But when Finey is on Vintage Viking, either at the marine or underway, the water is a little farther from the gunwale and alot deeper. He has a life preserver that we put on him when he goes for his little 'jaunts' in the dinghy, but when he's on the big boat I am hesitant to keep it on him. I am sure that over the next weeks he is going to either show me he understands "Big boat-Big water" and he doesn't jump overbard, or he is going to become very friendly with his life jacket.
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