We got to the beach and reassembled the board pretty quickly, not quite in the same way as before, but it looked just as plausible to us. After dragging the whole cumbersome contraption into the water, we proceeded to spend the next two hours repeatedly climbing onto the totally unstable board, pulling the mast out of the water, and falling over, doing involuntary belly flops and back busters until we were both sore and tired. Our knees were raw from climbing up on the sandpaper surface of the board, our legs were sore from trying to maintain our balance (remember, even on dry land I'm a bit, uh, precarious), our hands were sore from yanking on that silly rope, and our stomachs were sore from laughing so hard. It was so damn funny watching the other person gritting her teeth, determined not to fall again this time, we were making little yellow spots in the water by the time it was all over.

Turns out, we didn't really have to worry about sailing off into the sunset without being able to turn around. My longest voyage on the torture board was about 15 seconds. Kathy was able to get the sail out of the water once, and then just stood there, bent over with her eyes wide, wishing the next gust of wind would go ahead and dispose of her. After a couple hours of that, we could barely move and after dragging the thing back up on the beach, Kathy once again started calling me Ben Toverman.

But we hadn't had enough of the water yet. Late in the afternoon, the waves were calm and the water was crystal clear. We started up the little Avon and tootled around the sound until it was almost dark. I stopped the motor a couple of times in the deeper water and Kathy put on her face mask and snorkel and leaned over the side of the boat, lying on her stomach, to watch the fishes and stingrays, without actually having to get in the water with them. Her butt was up in the air for so long, she got an annoying little sunburn on some previously unexposed parts, but she really enjoyed it nonetheless. A small rain cloud came up later in the day, so we tootled back over to Hurricane Hole to visit our adopted shark family and ride out the rain. We watched while the rain cloud, which was lower than the top of Gorda Peak, collided with the mountain, and then afterward when the forest gave back most of the rainwater in the form of a steam cloud rising from the very top of the mountain. It was absolutely gorgeous.

By the time we had tootled back to the beach and 1-2-3 heaved! the dinghy back up to the tree where we chain it at night, we were once again drained of all useful energy. We still had to disassemble the torture board and haul it back to the Pink House. Dinner that night was simple and easy, frozen pizza with capers and green peppers added, along with a bottle of Cotes du Rhone, but we wolfed it and enjoyed every bite.