Fuel Dock Chats

As we were fueling up the boat for our final trip up the coast to Napa we had a gentlemen overlooking our activities from the dock say "That's a lot of wood you've got there.".  A simple statement which I read into as meaning, lovely boat with wood accents that make it stand out.  Keith read that he meant it was too much work.  Keith suggested the man might prefer a different type of boat, a Beneteau or Catalina if wood wasn't his thing.  Turns out he's spent quite a bit of time doing wood on boats and was saying he respected the work we had done.  In actuality, we haven't done anything...the previous owner did but we don't say that.  The conversation was short, less then two minutes, but had me thinking that evening about how many of these 'dock chats' we'd had each time we came to the fuel dock.

The thing is, the fuel dock is right next to a popular restaurant and tends to get a lot of foot traffic.  There are always folks standing overlooking the harbor and the fuel dock so we generally have an audience when we add fuel, water or empty our holding tanks.  It makes me laugh to answer the question of "What are you doing with that hose?"...um..it's the biffy sucker.  More then one adult has squirmed and more then one kid has 'ewwwwed',  much to my amusement.

We particularly get questions when we have the full contingent of kids on board and running around.  I guess it attracts attention and my kids like to talk anyone who pays attention to them.  One popular question, "Where are you from?" to which Loren always answers, "We're from Colorado!" and the questioners face goes blank with confusion or the quick witted ask, "Did you sail down the Colorado River?".   I remember one women who hung out and asked so many questions to the kids and us and then apologized for bombarding us with questions but she thought it was so neat what we were doing and she was living vicariously through us.  She was so honest and sweet that it was hard to be annoyed with the multitude of questions she was asking.  I think Keith finds the questions a bit intrusive but personally I get a kick out of chatting with folks and sharing tidbits of our life...I think it's different and interesting and you never know who you might inspire to try it for themselves.

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