Just a quick post and some pix tonight from a particularly fun (although breezy) paddle that Luseana the Mystic Mermaid (official mermaid of the Sebago Canoe Club) and I ran on the Saturday before Halloween. It all started out with me checking the forecast the week before, seeing a VERY nice day shaping up on Saturday, and thinking that it might be a good idea to go for a paddle and then adjourn to Nick's Lobster on Mill Basin. We'd been saying we were going to do this for ages, she's gone with other friends on Tuesdays, when they have a 2 for 1 lobster special, but I've always been stuck at work (boo!), and so I suggested it; she was up for it and then because we're both fairly sociable folks and conditions really did look copacetic for one last all-levels paddle, we opened it up to clubmates.
I suggested the Four Sparrows Marsh in Mill Basin as a good destination that most of the club's paddlers would be able to get to. It turned out that Luseana had only been there once, at night (she leads the monthly Full Moon Paddles, which are always a howling good time, awwwwOOOOOOO) so she thought that sounded good. I think it was Wednesday that we were finally nailing everything down, I was in the same scramble mode I've been in at work now for ages and foisted off the inviting on her, and she came up with this fun invitation to a Halloween Mermaid Pumpkin Paddle to the Four Spookies Marsh. Costumes encouraged, treats and prizes! I loved it! I haven't dressed up for Halloween in years but being pretty excited about being named an honorary mermaid for the day, I went right home that night and collected some good mergear. Funny thing was that although we didn't consult on our regalia we ended up looking like we had - funniest coincidence was that we were both wearing jingle shell necklaces I'd made after a winter hike at Sandy Hook a few years back as headpieces. Great fun!
We ended up with a group of 10 including the two of us. It was an absolutely glorious day, high 60's and sunny, as promised, but it ended up being much breezier than the prediction had called for. We set out for Mill Basin anyways, but then Steve the Paddling Chef, who was on his first paddle after an injury early in the summer, was feeling like he'd had enough and said he was going to just go to the "Jeep Marsh" (a pretty little marsh that's a bit before Mill Basin, close enough to the club to be a good destination for our summertime Open Paddles on weekends when there's high water in the morning, and also not coincidentally the destination of my own first post-surgery paddle a couple of years ago - just a very friendly and attractive destination, feels like you've gone somewhere neat without knocking yourself out). I offered to go with him, a relatively new member who was finding it to be a bit of a slog said she wanted to do that too, and a minute later the entire group decided (without any particular discussion!) that that was an excellent idea. We all went in, it was lovely to get out of the wind, we floated around in there and drank water and chit-chatted for a while, I passed out the bags of chocolate crisp eyeballs I'd brought for everyone ("The eyeballs of the sailors we dragged to their watery demise, they're the best part, fresh and sweet!")(only bonking one paddler with a toss that turned out to be an error in judgement) and then we headed back out onto the bay, where we just scooted home with the proverbial fair winds and following seas. We did just under 3 miles instead of the originally planned 5-ish, but with conditions being what they were, it felt like a good change of plan.
We got back to the club, washed the boats, Vicky brought out the costume prize M&M's she'd found (cutest, scariest, funniest, etc) and we passed those out, then we headed for dinner.
Dinner at Nick's was wonderful, the mermaids both indulged in lobster and Mermaid Water cocktails, delicious, I think everybody else was happy with their meals too. At the end, I'm not sure what we did to score such good treatment, but it was close to Vicky's birthday, a couple of the gang (not me, I'm not that thoughtful about stuff like that sometimes, d'oh!) thought to go ask the staff about having a slice of cake with a candle brought. A slice. One. Slice. And we're all sitting there talking about how stuffed we were when our waiter appears bearing a two foot long serving platter with all manner of deliciousness - biscotti, cheesecake, chocolate cake with an ice cream center, red velvet cake, oh my. Yes, with a candle! Simply glorious! Thank you Nick's!
Somehow we all found room, none of it went to waste!
Another great day at the club. Click on any of the pix for a slideshow view. Glutton for punishment? More pix on Flickr!
I suggested the Four Sparrows Marsh in Mill Basin as a good destination that most of the club's paddlers would be able to get to. It turned out that Luseana had only been there once, at night (she leads the monthly Full Moon Paddles, which are always a howling good time, awwwwOOOOOOO) so she thought that sounded good. I think it was Wednesday that we were finally nailing everything down, I was in the same scramble mode I've been in at work now for ages and foisted off the inviting on her, and she came up with this fun invitation to a Halloween Mermaid Pumpkin Paddle to the Four Spookies Marsh. Costumes encouraged, treats and prizes! I loved it! I haven't dressed up for Halloween in years but being pretty excited about being named an honorary mermaid for the day, I went right home that night and collected some good mergear. Funny thing was that although we didn't consult on our regalia we ended up looking like we had - funniest coincidence was that we were both wearing jingle shell necklaces I'd made after a winter hike at Sandy Hook a few years back as headpieces. Great fun!
We ended up with a group of 10 including the two of us. It was an absolutely glorious day, high 60's and sunny, as promised, but it ended up being much breezier than the prediction had called for. We set out for Mill Basin anyways, but then Steve the Paddling Chef, who was on his first paddle after an injury early in the summer, was feeling like he'd had enough and said he was going to just go to the "Jeep Marsh" (a pretty little marsh that's a bit before Mill Basin, close enough to the club to be a good destination for our summertime Open Paddles on weekends when there's high water in the morning, and also not coincidentally the destination of my own first post-surgery paddle a couple of years ago - just a very friendly and attractive destination, feels like you've gone somewhere neat without knocking yourself out). I offered to go with him, a relatively new member who was finding it to be a bit of a slog said she wanted to do that too, and a minute later the entire group decided (without any particular discussion!) that that was an excellent idea. We all went in, it was lovely to get out of the wind, we floated around in there and drank water and chit-chatted for a while, I passed out the bags of chocolate crisp eyeballs I'd brought for everyone ("The eyeballs of the sailors we dragged to their watery demise, they're the best part, fresh and sweet!")(only bonking one paddler with a toss that turned out to be an error in judgement) and then we headed back out onto the bay, where we just scooted home with the proverbial fair winds and following seas. We did just under 3 miles instead of the originally planned 5-ish, but with conditions being what they were, it felt like a good change of plan.
We got back to the club, washed the boats, Vicky brought out the costume prize M&M's she'd found (cutest, scariest, funniest, etc) and we passed those out, then we headed for dinner.
Dinner at Nick's was wonderful, the mermaids both indulged in lobster and Mermaid Water cocktails, delicious, I think everybody else was happy with their meals too. At the end, I'm not sure what we did to score such good treatment, but it was close to Vicky's birthday, a couple of the gang (not me, I'm not that thoughtful about stuff like that sometimes, d'oh!) thought to go ask the staff about having a slice of cake with a candle brought. A slice. One. Slice. And we're all sitting there talking about how stuffed we were when our waiter appears bearing a two foot long serving platter with all manner of deliciousness - biscotti, cheesecake, chocolate cake with an ice cream center, red velvet cake, oh my. Yes, with a candle! Simply glorious! Thank you Nick's!
Somehow we all found room, none of it went to waste!
Another great day at the club. Click on any of the pix for a slideshow view. Glutton for punishment? More pix on Flickr!
4 comments:
Sounds like a truly wonderful glorious day...and funny how these spontaneous days turn out to be the best ones...
What beautiful skies. Sounds like a fun change of plans. Sometimes those sudden change of plans are the most fun. Thank you for bringing me along via your blog.
It was fantastic and I was quite glad the spontaneous change worked out as nicely as it did.
And yes, the sky was wonderful! Beautiful high clouds.
What a hoot. Sounds like a lot of fun. Lobster, I am so jealous!!
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