Mucking about in boats

Arrowtown book buyer Miranda Spary continues her regular column about her recommendations for a good read and life as she sees it . . .


I'm writing this in my cosy cabin as the lightning cracks and the thunder growls and the rain hammers down on the good ship Miranda.

On average (in this part of the world), there are three days of rain in May and no days of rain in June, July and August, so I guess this is three months' worth of rain in one hit.

Whatever, it is very nice to be tucked up in the warm and dry and not out having adventures, as we did yesterday.

Picture it - our boat is moored in a beautiful bay, sheltered behind a huge rocky cliff with a Byzantine fort perched on the top.

We hop in our dinghy and skim across the water, tying up at a little cafe's jetty. A quick coffee, then off to the market five minutes down the road.

A happy half-hour trying all the olives and cheeses and fruits before filling our baskets and bags with enough food to satisfy the greediest of gluttons.

The sky gets dark as we walk back to the dinghy and we scurry into the cafe to hide from the storm. Others are sheltering there too, including a fisherman who sells us "very new" shrimps he has just caught. They are the unshrimpiest shrimps I've ever seen, huge great things, and so "new" they are still jumping around in the bag.

When the flashes and roars move away and the rain eases, we head for home.

I ask my darling if we should bale out the six inches of water in the dinghy.

"Relax - no need - the water will fly out the back."

I didn't relax, not just because my darling's boating expertise is a little suspect, but also because the storm was sneaking back again, and a few nasty cracks of lightning seemed to be striking uncomfortably close to us.

I was facing my darling so I could make sure he was watching what he was doing.

One of his great sayings is "What's the worst that could happen?", and he said it once when we ran aground in Fiji.

Yesterday, he was looking backwards and telling me that the water was indeed flying out the back when suddenly I was flying backwards and saw a huge brown plume coming out the back.

If a dinghy could leave skidmarks on the water, ours would have.

The strawberries, cherries and shrimps jumped out of their bags and floated around our feet.

Oh yes, aground - I remember this.

You may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but my old dog is often happiest repeating the old ones.

As punishment, we made him get out and push us off.

There is a very old fable about this bay with its famous sandbank and people are often seen seemingly walking on water over it.

I bet there was a bit of Turkish delight as the locals watched our ship of fools hurtling towards it.

Straight back to the boat and into the sort of adventure I like best - the printed sort where I can just imagine the thrills, rather than experiencing them myself.

Strange thrills this week - Rory MacLean's Magic Bus looks at the "hippie highway" from Istanbul to Kathmandu and discovers the progress (or lack of) and problems that the past 40 years have inflicted on the trail that so many happy hippies followed.

It's fascinating and I'm sure anyone who made that trip themselves will love reading about it even more than I did.

Unlikely sounding adventures abound in Alex's Adventures in Numberland.

Alex Bellos looks at the history and thrills of maths. I hate maths and the idea of "recreational mathematics" seems to be oxymoronic.

But Bellos is a terrific storyteller and he makes maths comprehensible (well, mostly) and exciting. Each chapter is a separate story and the "pi" chapter is the first time I ever understood what pi really means.

I feel so smart! Try it - you'll love it.

- miranda@queenstown.co.nz

 

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