Exercise at Sea

011 01 25
Aboard Radiofree Canada

Get real.  When you are at sea you do not need any additional exercise. 

However.  Sometimes you are ashore.  Or worse, like today, you find yourself  stuck on your boat with no way to get off. 

Yesterday we arrived at |Lake Worth Inlet after a day sail out of Port Everglades in 15 knot winds and 5 foot waves off the forward starboard beam.  Anchoring in North Lake Worth we find ourselves in 20 knots of wind threatening 30.  North Lake Worth,  a shallow little bulge in the ICW that could only be called a lake in the land of the near dead and those that profit from them,  has kicked up a marching parade of 3 footers, quite extraordinary in a 12 foot deep lake.

NOAA has issued a tornado watch across much of the land of the near dead  and those who profit from it, also known as Central Florida  An approaching cold front is going to have a squall line punch to it and no one is betting on the time of its arrival.

We are trapped aboard.  Even if we were tempted to debark in the face of a forecast threatening boat destroying squalls and tornadoes such foolhardiness would prove counterproductive.  In three foot chop no inflatable dinghy will protect your tender bottom from a thorough soaking in the salt.  Anchored in the wealthiest zip code in the USA we would not be well received were we to walk into any store in the area soaked from the waist to our toes. 

Stuck on board  we are working overtime to amuse ourselves.  Boatwork is done - jobs that we have eluded for months become high priority and are tended to.  Lockers unattended by the quartermaster since our last offshore foray are stripped down, inventoried anew, cupboards washed and contents restowed in good order.

Normally the salon of our boat is a preferred space.  It is peacefully dim.  As I read this the Budget Committee giggles good naturedly commenting that she never before understood how much our boat and I had in common.   After a full day occupied by two adults the sixty cubic meters of living space have grown tiny.  Yesterday was spent battling wave and wind on our journey from Ft. Lauderdale to Lake Worth.  We vastly prefer that to enforced idleness of a storm day at anchor.

Without discussion there is no drinking.  No one wants to be slowed by the effects of alcohol when the squall line hits, or worse asleep and groggy. 

By day's end we wear zombie stares, our personalities wiped out by endless reading brain cells stuffed to the bursting point.  Hours spent at the computer or portable game console have given us an unhealthy palour.  Sex has come and gone.  We are bored beyond endurance. 

It is time for onboard exercise.  We have a program.  We turn on a little SRV (Stevie Ray).  We have a few tracks where Carlos Santana joins in.  Perfect for what we are about.  We tack on some Joe Bonamassa, introduced to us by friends Tim and Bice back in Lucan ON.  Then we start, and this is for real:

Grab a handrail.  Sorry Hunter owners may have to sit this out.  No one at Hunter ever thought their owners would leave the dock in the first place so they may not have handrails.

Start bending and straightening the knees.  When you are bouncing along to the rythm section things are set.

Add some lateral sway - maybe 20 degrees or maybe 30 each way.  As your knees pump you up and down swing to port and starboard.

Hold the handrails like they are stays.  Once it is all cooking throw yourself back and forward to boot.

Let go the handrail with one hand and then the other.  The game is to always have one but only one hand holding on but to time it to the microsecond.  Failing and falling is part of the program.

How you have a full seaborn experience.  Up, down, back, forth, trippin' and stumbling and you and your derriere hitting everything in sight? 

When the bruise count hits an even dozen you can quit.

Just like going to sea.