When we are home, Chris is normally our travel planner, researching exhaustively to find interesting and worthwhile excursions. On the boat, our roles get shuffled a bit, and for December 27th, George planned what was billed as a fabulous excursion to explore the fascinating ruins of Fort DeSoto, a state park in Mullet Key Bayou. Mullet Key was beyond a bridge too low for our air draft, and in water too shallow for Assisted Living (already sounds perfect, doesn’t it?), but years ago we had anchored near the low bridge and thought that would be a fine anchorage for the night. George explained there would be a short dinghy ride, a brief walk, and then we would positively marvel at the historic ruins of the old miliary fortification. Thirty-eight years of marriage, and I never, ever learn.

We had no problems finding our former anchorage near the bridge, and the dinghy ride to the park started out just fine, if a bit longer than advertised. Curiously, I started noticing some worrisome signage blanketing seemingly all approaches to the park – “No Internal Combustion Motors Allowed.” What? Not to worry, he explains, that’s not where we are headed. Meanwhile, George hadn’t counted on the endless stretches of “no wake” zones in the channel, so the dinghy ride stretches on so long that I am starting to sunburn.

At long last, we spot the scraggly sand beach that George says in our destination. Unfortunately, hundreds of yards in front of said destination there is a dreaded sign “No Internal Combustion Motors Allowed.” Being the good citizens and responsible boaters that we are, we turn off and raise our 20hp dinghy outboard motor and begin the arduous and oh so awkward task of trying to row our gangly rubber boat ashore. It is at this point that I realize that the two paddles (with no oar locks in sight) were included with our dinghy merely as some sort of nautical decoration. They are practically useless. We wobble from side to side, for the most part counteracting each other’s efforts, changing directions erratically, and given the constant and uncontrolled zig zagging, “paddled” for at least triple the distance of the space between the sign and the shore. That set the mood for our landing among the fried prickly vegetation blanketing the beach, and the overgrown “path” (if you could call it that), that ultimately (but by no means quickly) took us to the main road on the island. With cars whizzing by a few feet to our left, we trudged along the edge of the pavement to a safe crossing and then continued on walkways and scraggly beach “paths” for miles in search of historical enlightenment in the form of the promised marvelous ruins, cussing my choice of flip flops for the trek that had been described to me as “a brief walk.”

There comes a point in every George-cursion, when Chris plops herself down like a recalcitrant labrador, all four paws splayed out in opposite directions, and refuses to take one more step, regardless of how hard the leash is pulled. It is at this point that George looks Chris directly in the eye with all sincerity (liar, liar, pants on fire) and suggests that he is going to run up ahead to take a quick peek, but he’ll be back in a jiff. In George-speak, “in a jiff” typically means 45 minutes to an hour and a half. Today was no exception. There are many reasons why I love this man, but while waiting impatiently for his return from a “quick peek,” I usually have a difficult time calling them to mind.

When George comes happily bopping back to meet me, we retrace our steps through the island, back to the scraggly path to the beach, and then paddle/wobble our rubber boat back to the channel where motors are once again allowed (we are no better this second time around). I stretch out like a mermaid figurehead extending from the bow of the dinghy in an effort to get the old girl up on a plane. It seems we are both more than ready to bring this particular little adventure to a close.