She has been wet now!

The day started off with putting the boat on a little cart and rolling it out of my building.  

But it doesn't take long while pushing a 22 foot long boat down the sidewalk to start drawing a crowd.  I am pushing it to the far side of that red building in the distance on the right side of the road. There is a hole in the fence and a sort of ramp down to the beach.  Seem a lot closer when you aren't making such a spectacle. The cart was working fine at this point so it was pretty easy.

 It is hard to tell from this photograph, but there is about a 15 foot hill that the boat is rolling down.  Getting it down was no problem... and getting it back up is future Nick's problem... So really no problem at all! By this point the crowd had grown to seven.

Good thing too, because it was kind of a pain dragging it over the sand.  First lesson learned, put big sand bubble tires on the cart.  Also, deceptively from this distance the waves look tiny.  

I don't have a picture of the first time it touches the water, but this is pretty close.  Second lesson was learned almost immediately.  The smooth shinny varnished bottom of the boat that I tried so hard to make shiny and smooth... when wet is actually the mythical frictionless surface from high school physics classes!  I pulled the boat into the water, jumped in, and BAMN!  Immediately slipped and fell on my ass in the crumple in the bottom.

Turns out the waves were bigger than I had initially thought. Also, third lesson of the day, I need foot braces to press against to get any power into a stroke.  Nothing like sitting on a frictionless bench, over a frictionless floor, trying to pull through the surf.

We rowed out past the breakers, then admired the view for a moment.  Checked the stability. then rowed right back to shore.  As far as stable, I am pretty sure you cold stand on the side and fly fish in a hurricane and it would be fine.  Very stable.  Also water tight, which is nice too.

Back in, pulling it over closer to where the ramp is.

So a lot of the crowd stayed with us for the walk home. 

Ah shit...

"I'll tell you what you got there... you got there a problem."

Yea, so the cart is going to need some work.  This problem was solved with feats of strength and team work from strangers. 

 Who all came over to talk about partner style card games.