David's Diary: Wednesday, October 24, 2001

First Dinghy Ride

We have been commissioning many new pieces of equipment in preparing Dragonsinger, but none was quite so anticipated by the children as the new dinghy. In fact, it wasn't the new dinghy that they were so excited about, but rather the new dinghy and a new 4HP Yamaha 4-stroke engine. The dinghy is inflatable, so Jocelyn and Kevin both anticipated getting it up on a plane using the small engine.

I took Jocelyn, Kevin, and Allen for the first ride on the dinghy following the channel markers out of Port Napoleon. The channel is very narrow and I wonder how we'll manage to get Dragonsinger out when the time comes. While we know it is deep enough, the channel is narrow and will take careful navigation. My nerves are not helped by looking over less than 50m away to see fisherman walking into the water up to their ankles. The Rhone river has spent centuries depositing silt in the river delta and we just have to make sure that we don't bump into any of it when we are taking Dragonsinger out for its first test sail.

Kevin

There was a lot of discussion about who would get to ride solo in the dinghy first. Jocelyn won the right and was soon seen charging through the marina, despite the fact that she was under strict orders not to run the engine at more than half speed.

Kevin finally got his chance to go solo. After a shaky start bumping his way along Dragonsinger's hull, he got things under control and headed out of the marina. In no time, he too was planing along enjoying the thrill of controlling the dinghy by himself. The dinghy is your connection to society when you are anchored out and we expect that Jocelyn and Kevin will have lots of opportunity in the next year to use their skills to ferry others and ourselves throughout anchorages in the Mediterranean.