For years I have sailed on the Great Lakes, and having just recently dug up some of my sailing pictures, I thought that I might use some of them for another travel article. The stories I am talking about are not a part of one particular summer's cruise, but incidents that have happened during a number of different years. So, if the children at one point seem surprisingly young, or, in the next photo, have grown up amazingly quickly, you will understand the reason. ____________________________________________________

Having sailed, usually, for 4 to 6 weeks in the summer, it had been a major concern of mine to make sure that I had a happy crew. And since both of the children continued sailing with me right through their teenage years, I must have done at least a few things right.

Having a lot of time on the water, getting large distances covered was usually not a requirement. After all, if we did not reach a particular cove today, we could always reach that place tomorrow. As a result of this ability to improvise on our sailing destinations from one day to the next, it was usually possible to keep everybody happy. Everyone, that is, except Moppy, our vaguely Briard-related mutt. As far as he was concerned we never visited as many islands we passed as he would have liked. Any and every island we passed was of interest to him. And so, his routine message as we sailed past another island, was always the same:

"Oh, I like this island. Its beautiful. Let's anchor here and go ashore! And, by the way, I do have to lift a leg! See, there are all kinds of trees there. Let's stop here."

(You should keep in mind though that the waters which we often sailed through is known as the "Thirty Thousand Islands". I've never actually counted them, but the number seems about right.)

But, despite his obsession with islands, he was really was a remarkably good sailor. During the many years he sailed with us, he fell into the water only twice. Once, I suspect, because a barking dog belonging to a cottage nearby, must have somehow insulted Moppy and he got terribly irate, running around in circles on the deck and missing a step, and the other time, I'm afraid I have to admit, because of a mistake of mine.

The wind had been very light and nothing much was going on. Moppy was asleep next to the cabin along the rail and being perfectly happy and well behaved. Like the experienced "Old Salt" that he was, he knew enough to change from one side of the boat to the other whenever we were tacking. Nothing needed to be said or done. Moppy would get up, walk forward around the cabin roof and then make himself comfortable on the other side.

Only a noisy powerboat passing us too closely would provoke him to reprimand them by barking at them angrily. But, that day, there wasn't even a powerboat to disturb his happiness.

It was I who caused the unnecessary excitement. There was little wind, and needing some diversion, I called down to my daughter, Andrea, who was in the cabin reading a book.

"Hey, Andrea, would you please put on some music. "There's a tape of the PIRATES OF PENZANCE down there; I'd love to listen to that."

And sure enough, the music soon lightened up the tediousness of ghosting toward our destination. This was music sure to invite one to dance the Sailor's Hornpipe. After all, what else was there to to? And so, steering TALARIA on its course to Little Current, I performed my, no doubt rather inferior, version of it. Moppy hearing me stomping and dancing, decided to join the dance. Two or three times he circled the cabin roof and performed for all I know, a more authentic version than I did. Still, he was out of practice too. He misjudged some doggy dance step and sailed over the side of the boat. All I saw was a large splash and a few seconds later, Moppy swimming vigorously, trying to catch up with us.

What a pitiful sight he was. his head, normally quite massive as a result of his curly black fur, had shrunk. How small, how decidedly in need of help he looked.

Rescue operations proceeded successfully. Andrea, having climbed into NO CATCH-UP helped Moppy back into the tender and then back up to TALARIA's deck. All of us, probably, learned a lesson or two, and, to be quite honest, it did help to put some excitement into an otherwise rather boring sailing day.

There were other things on such a sailing trip that would keep the crew happy and entertained. If there was enough wind to keep Talaria healed sufficiently, there was always the possibility of going over the side on the "Swing". The Swing was a canvas boswain's chair attached to TALARIA's third halyard. If we were sailing heeled well over, and therefore at a pretty good speed, the person sitting in the Swing would be dragged through the water well away from the hull and even trailing well behind the boat. Being dragged at six or more knots is quite an amzing experience.

After the first shock of being "way out there," it was quite a thrilling way to spend the time.

Julian, my son, was an expert at it; but even Andrea as quite a young girl, insisted that she too ought to be able to "go out on the Swing". For safety reasons things were rigged somewhat differently, but she to had a wonderful time. Watching the fun the children had, even my 80 year old mother got in on the act.

Anchored in some quiet cove, some other kinds of entertainments had to be available. NO CATCH-UP turned out to be very successful on keeping the crew entertained. She was an excellet rowboat making it possible for Andrea and/or Julian to visit potential friends on other boats. They could head out somewhere and do some fishing, and occasionally embarrass me by actually bringing back some food for dinner. This, of course was an embarrassing situation for me. Not being into fishing myself, I suddenly had to figure out what to do with a potentially 'monstrous catch' that might arrive.

In fact, once, when Andrea out fishing with Julian caught a quite impressive specimen, I was in quite a quandry about what to do with it. Luckily, this paricular success was accompanied by so much excited shouting from NO CATCH-UP,that a nearby cottager came to investigate. Hearing me confess my inexperience about what to do with it now, he invited us all onto his island and even cooked the catch for us.

Finally, this story having turned out to be so thoroughly centered on NO CATCH-UP, let me quickly explain the significance of her name. One of the boats I had used as tender had had the unpleasant habit of catching up with the mother ship on downwind runs and crashing into her stern. As a quasi-magical way of telling her what was expected of her while being towed, we gave her the name NO CATCH-UP. Amazingly, despite my inexperience in the use of magic, it worked. Our tender turned out to be well behaved.

Even in other ways NO CATCH-UP turned out to be a great tender. Not only could she be used to row ashore or to explore the surrounding area, or to fish, but being designed as a sailboat in her own right she would keep the kids happily busy sailing around anchorages. The only rule about heading out for a sail aboard NO CATCH-UP, was to remain within sight of TALARIA. My crew was happy - all but Moppy who could not understand why he shouldn't get the same privileges as the rest of the crew, and I, being able to get some down-time, was delighted as well.