It seems early for cruise ships, but there was a big one in the outer harbor last weekend. Depending upon one's shoreside vantage point, the way these ships loom behind Goat Island makes them seem bigger than Goat Island. And from the water, they seem bigger than the bridge. They're not that big, of course ... but they're big. Like some sort of floating city (or starship??). And those little (in comparison) lifeboats ferrying passengers back-and-forth to town are a definite part of the picture. One must watch out for them (!!) as they zoom right along, taking tight turns around buoys, paying limited attention to local craft. Or that's how it seems when you're the one in the local craft heading out for a little joy-ride/look-see on a breezy, sunny Sunday ...
Mr. Betty and I headed north instead of south, for a change, under the bridge and around Jamestown to Dutch Island, where we thought we'd be in the lee — very important for swimming, picnicking and reading the paper — and where we saw some sort of amphibious inflatable. I'm serious. It rolled down to the water as if it were a lifeboat on stilts, then the stilts folded forward and back allowing it to sit/float in the water. Then it zoomed off.
I thought I was seeing things.
Same story when I saw the guy headed toward shore in a sailing dinghy with a heart on the sail — wait, what?? A heart on the sail?? Is that like a heart on a sleeve?? More likely, it's just a design or class I've never encountered ...
And somehow that made me think (as one thought/thing always leads to another) of all those Optimists, the teeny-tiny boats that kids learn to sail at Sail Newport. I'd seen them racing everywhere in the bay, under the bridge, even out in the ocean in recent days and weeks — there was some sort of major Optimist regatta going on. Such large fleets of such small boats looked bizarre — and, yes, optimistic — like schools of white minnows flitting on (instead of in) the big blue sea. The rules dictate that they must sail to their races but they can be towed home, or so I've been told. That explains why we saw teams being towed back toward the harbor as we headed back toward the harbor ourselves ...
But Mr. Betty hit the gas at that point, so the Optis disappeared all-too-quickly in our wake as we made tracks (not really) to the mooring.
