direction from north to northwest.
Once we had gotten about as far upriver as we could, about two nautical miles, we gingerly circled Tippity Wichity Island—a notoriously shallow area with the added menace of an overhanging power line crossing from the northeast shore. (This unassuming geographic feature was once an intriguing blot on the local landscape known as Happie Land, established after the Civil War by a Confederate smuggler named Howgate, who changed the name of the island from Lynch to Tippling-house and Witchery-house Island—hence Tippity Wichity. Or at least that’s the story.)
Serenity onboard was wearing thin as we began our trek back downriver, past points Long and Short, and entered Horseshoe Bend once more. The light morning breeze had petered out at 10:15, as punctual as a Swiss train, and we had entered that brief breathless purgatory before the temperature soars and the day goes well and truly downhill.
Hal was steering us well clear of the shoal waters that trail off Horseshoe Point, when the sun topped out for the day. The humidity and the temperature kept up their neck-and-neck race for 100 as we idled across Horseshoe Bend. It was at this point that serenity flew out the window.
Sweating and sulky, I found myself questioning the very nature of cruising—you know, the whole “Why are we here?” and “What’s the point?” revisionist talk. As Rick and Hal looked on helplessly, I began reciting Edna St. Vincent Millay’s The Unexplorer, which you’ll be happy to know is very short because I’m going to quote it:
There was a road ran past our door
Too lovely to explore.
I asked my mother once—she said