06 July 2007

The Strangest Thing

We spent 4th of July on the boat. Had a nice picnic dinner, flew a kite over at the park, hung around the marina, and finally watched the fireworks. That's not strange, I'm going to have to wind my way up to the strange part.

Right after dinner, we hung out in the cockpit enjoying the fine weather. A rowboat came by, expertly rowed by a young lady with her boyfriend talking on the phone. They, like us, were probably bored waiting around for the fireworks and decided to take a tour of the marina. The young lady was very friendly and exchanged pleasantries as she rowed by. They went down to the end of the pier and turned around.

On the way back, they exchanged places. That's when the fun started...the dude had no concept of how to row a boat (disclaimer: neither do I). They kept running into things, having to fend off, and were making absolutely no head way. We had front row seats for this and the guy was open to ridicule by my wife and 6 year old daughter (I understood as I can't row a straight line so I stayed silent).

It was fun, the young lady was enjoying ribbing him as much as we were. He finally picked up the pace a bit and made it out into the marina basin. Not without mishaps, they kept hitting pilings. As they were going to get blown a lot more by the wind in the basin, I decided to look over at them every few minutes. The second time I looked, I couldn't see them.

That's when things got strange.

I was just starting to think that I needed to run over there when I saw a hippie over on B dock pulling their dinghy out of the water. Still no sign of the people, the hippie pulled the dinghy onto the dock and then headed back to his boat to sit on the bow, crosslegged. I then see the guy's head pop out of the water in between a boat and the dock, struggling to get out. The freakin' hippie is 8 feet away, staring at the horizon, like he isn't noticing anything and hadn't just pulled a capsized rowboat out of the water. I could then see the girl by the dock but still no reaction from the hippie. It took about 30 seconds for the guy to get out of the water and then pull the girl out. The hippie must have been back in his meditative trance by then.

I called over to ask if they needed a blanket, the guy tried to act cool and said no, the girl had some sense and said yes, so I ran over with two blankets (about a 90 second run). I handed the bigger blanket to the girl thinking that if either of them needed saving, the one who could row and had the sense to accept a blanket after being in 50 degree water as night was approaching should be the one.

Granted, this all happened fast even if it seemed like it took forever but how did the hippie not notice that the people needed help? If he was in such a trance (and this trance is why I keep referring to him as a hippie, I'm now convinced he was stoned) how did he know that the boat needed to be pulled up on the dock. When I was handing them the blankets, I was 5 feet from the hippie and his gaze never wavered from the horizon.

Strange indeed. The best part was that they obviously survived since they brought the blankets back after the fireworks.

8 comments:

Brendhan said...

Hippies suck. I waited all week for a stirring narrative of your sail last weekend, and this is what I get?

Damn...

Anonymous said...

From what I've seen of California, this seems quite normal. Although I normally associate this type of behavior with the southern half of your state.

Kudos to you, for providing the blankets. That's a tough situation. I've been the helper and, very occasionally, the helpee in similar situations. It's tough to provide help to someone without insulting them.

Tillerman said...

Wait a minute. Didn't this used to be a "bloglet". And now it's a "SuperBlog"? When did it change and why? What does it mean? Inquiring minds demand to know.

EVK4 said...

Yeah, I'm re-branding to superblog just in time for my lamest post of the year. My timing could have been better.

Zen said...

You did good, But...WTF why does the guy have to be a hippie? He could have just been a stoner, crackhead, spaced out dude, powerboat guy,hermit, landlubber, yogi, a republician! You been watching too much southpark dude. Why the hippies got to get the bad rap?!? Give the hippies a break! Hippies are people too! peace! :-)

Zen said...

Superblog...

wow I commented on a superblog!!

way cool!

or better yet...

FarOut man!

Tillerman said...

Hmmm. It's not that I'm competitive by nature but I do hate being upstaged by a SuperBlog. I may have to do some rebranding myself but how can I go one better than SuperBlog?

Proper Course could become Righteous Heading or Holy Vector perhaps? Doesn't really roll off the tongue does it?

EVK4 said...

Zen, "why does the guy have to be a hippie"? I asked myself the same thing...couldn't he have been a frat boy, a glaucoma patient, a raver, or some other stereotype that smokes pot? But no, the guy was a hippie, not my doing and until I stage the intervention I'm powerless to help.