Which then led me to wonder why I don't drive the boat myself. I mean, I KNOW why, but why? You know? It's just so unlike me, after all these years, not to have mastered the art of boat driving. We have had a boat for years, and even when it was just the Whaler, I never felt all that comfortable driving that either.
It just feels wrong. It feels like the boat is controlling you, it feels like it is skidding all over the place, like it doesn't respond properly to the steering wheel, I guess it's like driving in snow. Sometimes you are in control, and sometimes the conditions are.
I don't like it. I have approached it by telling myself I was ridiculous and that I was going to do it. And all I think while doing so is that I don't like it! I would far rather kick back with face trained toward sun and relax while someone else drove. And Charlie always wants to drive and he is an excellent driver. He really is.
But still, every year I think that it should be the year I get over my thing for not driving the boat, and every year I hardly even get near the steering wheel. When you are in the middle of the lake and going full speed, it's all good. Then it responds properly and so on. But it's when you are going slow and the current gets involved and there are other boats around and heaven forbid I should get it to a dock. So I don't!
It has to have something to do with the water. I've never enjoyed water sports either. Put me on a pair of skis and any type of snow condition and no problem. I will fly down a trail without a second thought. Put me on a pair of water skis, and it feels nothing but wrong. Even though the surface is flat, my brain somehow argues with itself that there is danger all around! Going over the wake ... you could fall! And being tugged around by a rope with your arms outstretched in front of you ... it's really not my idea of fun.
There are always reasons, and when I was a kid and being towed behind a boat by other kids, they had it figured out how to go as close to land as possible while you were sure you were going to die. Great hilarity for the boat occupants -- sheer terror for the sucker on the end of the rope flying towards land, wondering exactly what will happen when the water skis hit dry land. Sure death. So it's no wonder that even when I found someone I could trust to drive the boat, and felt somewhat safe, that when I wiped out and received an enema up the nose and the butt that I didn't want to repeat such a joy again.
Just no fond memories of water sports. Even as a young adult, there was a psycho boat driver hauling me with my small children on tubes, trying to kill us. It just became a lot safer to stay in the boat and watch others go through the art of fine water torture. Charlie is a wonderful and patient boat driver who has no desire to hurt the ones he tows, and I've thought more than once this summer that I should try wake boarding. But then I flashback to the fact that I hate to see the black water curling around me and feeling that uneasy pit in my stomach as I wait to fall, because I have never done any of it without the end result being a painful smack into angry, churning water.
In truth, the lake itself creeps me out. It's so dark in the deep and you can't see anything beyond the impenetrable surface. What lies beneath the depths?
I can float in the ocean all day long without anything but a smile on my face, but I go into the lake, do a few quick laps and get out pronto. I don't know what it is, but the only thing I know for sure is that I don't like it.
That, and driving boats and being towed behind them! And it's not like some strange adult-onset phobia. I've always felt this way. I remember when I was a little kid and my father had bought a cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee that had a little motorboat, the kind with the engine in the back that you steer with. He put my sister and myself and my grandmother in it, and off we went, my first boat ride. And I was terrified. Sheer and total terror. I could see the bottom of the lake, it was sandy and clean and the sun shone down making it twinkle. And all I knew is that I wanted OUT of that boat. My father was oblivious to my terror and I kept thinking that I was being ridiculous, so I didn't say anything. Until I realized, I had to get out, and begged him to take me back. I can still see the surprise on his face, on my grandmother's face, and even my sisters. I was a tough kid, a tomboy, and I wasn't afraid of anything *but snakes!* I kept begging until we did go in, and I never got into that boat again.
It's just weird, how things like that happen and you don't know why and there is no true explanation. I wouldn't say I am afraid of boats today, but that same feeling comes over me when I try to drive one. So far out of my comfort zone that I want out.
AHOY!
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