Saturday, August 14, 2010
Camp Caribou, Winslow, Maine
If anyone every wants to know why on earth anyone would have a kid, the answer is this: if you don't have kids, you have no chance to be invited to Father-Son Weekend at Camp Caribou.
Needless to say, this is where my kid spent 7 weeks of his summer, and this year I went to Father-Son. A perfect weekend. The weather was perfect. The camp was perfect. The kid was perfect.
Well, OK, everything was perfect except the windsurfing, but it was close. Saturday on Patti Pond was one of those gorgeous mid-80s blue-sky, puffy cloud days where nothing can go wrong. We were only missing one thing: wind. But, undaunted, I grabbed one of the underused camp windsurfers and went out for a spin while the kid kayaked around me. Was on a very wide 9 foot HiFly something or other. The biggest sail with hardware that worked was a 4.4 ("hey mate, getting an 11-year old to hold a 3.5 is hard enough," said Miles the waterfront guy), totally un-downhauled, so I fixed that up as best I could with no downhaul cleat around. Screwed around a bit, a little freestyle when there was breeze. Fun for a while.
Patti Pond is a little lake that's narrow enough that the kids can swim all the way across it in about 45 minutes, at least on their branch of it. Camp Caribou exists on a peninsula that juts out into the pond. A magical spot. "You don't get this kind of beauty at Andro," camp director Bill gruffs out.
But better than sailing on such a day was jumping off the water trampoline, onto The Blob, and then running down the "Log" and into the water with the kids.
But, hey, I just windsurfed in a new state! Another notch on the belt.
OK, never mind all this. Gotta go play paddle tennis.
But oh my goodness, what a perfect day to spend with a kid who will probably never be 12 again.
If anyone every wants to know why on earth anyone would have a kid, the answer is this: if you don't have kids, you have no chance to be invited to Father-Son Weekend at Camp Caribou.
Needless to say, this is where my kid spent 7 weeks of his summer, and this year I went to Father-Son. A perfect weekend. The weather was perfect. The camp was perfect. The kid was perfect.
Well, OK, everything was perfect except the windsurfing, but it was close. Saturday on Patti Pond was one of those gorgeous mid-80s blue-sky, puffy cloud days where nothing can go wrong. We were only missing one thing: wind. But, undaunted, I grabbed one of the underused camp windsurfers and went out for a spin while the kid kayaked around me. Was on a very wide 9 foot HiFly something or other. The biggest sail with hardware that worked was a 4.4 ("hey mate, getting an 11-year old to hold a 3.5 is hard enough," said Miles the waterfront guy), totally un-downhauled, so I fixed that up as best I could with no downhaul cleat around. Screwed around a bit, a little freestyle when there was breeze. Fun for a while.
Patti Pond is a little lake that's narrow enough that the kids can swim all the way across it in about 45 minutes, at least on their branch of it. Camp Caribou exists on a peninsula that juts out into the pond. A magical spot. "You don't get this kind of beauty at Andro," camp director Bill gruffs out.
But better than sailing on such a day was jumping off the water trampoline, onto The Blob, and then running down the "Log" and into the water with the kids.
But, hey, I just windsurfed in a new state! Another notch on the belt.
OK, never mind all this. Gotta go play paddle tennis.
But oh my goodness, what a perfect day to spend with a kid who will probably never be 12 again.
