Captain D's Birthday

It was Captain D's birthday last week, and to celebrate we had a canoe expedition up the Annapolis River.


After getting slightly swamped and almost tipping in some minor rapids, we were on our way.


I rode with Laurie and Ernest, and Mark was in with hot ladies Shannon and Mickie.


Nay, Jay, and Chani piled into the last canoe.


Captain D, the man of the day, was the lone wolf in his kayak.


It seemed that my boat was both the coolest and the fastest by far, so after about an hour we decided we'd pull up on a rocky little beach to celebrate happy hour and give the slowpokes a chance to catch up. We drank our beers and watched the other canoes float by across the river.


After happy hour, we launched again. As we rounded a bend in the river, I saw the property Mark and I had bought this past spring! Sadly, we still haven't named it. Here it is, as seen from the river.


As the coolest and fastest canoe, we managed to overtake the other slow boats and land first at our ultimate destination, even though we had stopped for drinks and the others hadn't.

There was just one problem, though. We'd originally launched from a pre-arranged dock, but we hadn't really thought about where we would land. We pulled up onto a random little beach in the correct general area only to discover that the ground was not solid, but squelching, sucking, sinking mud. Ernest hopped over a little brook and landed in even squelchier mud. Then he discovered that he couldn't get back. He was stranded!


Jay bravely decided he would rescue Ernest in his canoe.


Then Jay got stuck in the shallows.


Chani waded out to rescue Jay. Meanwhile, Ernest got away. We never did rescue him.


After some minor chaos wherein many canoes went in different directions and people hauled themselves up the river bank at various different points, we all reconvened at Chani and Captain D's place for a birthday supper of tacos and pie!




Good times. Happy birthday, Captain D. You are older than I am, and that's the important part.