Under the sea

Okay, I admit it.  I'm writing ahead and setting a time to post.  This way I can keep things churning even when we are off the grid.  I'm guessing we aren't far from Oriental, still.

Things that have ended up in the water over the past month*

Shoes: 7

Hats: 5

Tupperware: 2

Cups: 2

Small toys: 1

Goldfish crackers: 40+

Bamboo: 1

Fruit: 1

Books: 2 (Mr Forgetful and Are You My Mother?)

Indy: 1**

*Recovery rate is 100% to date for all non-food items

**This occurred at the dinghy dock in Solomons, which was almost at water-level, while she was wearing a life jacket.  She was about two feet away from me, so her total time in the water was less than 1.3 seconds.  Happily, this has given Indy a healthy respect for the combination of gravity and water, and she is quick to tell everyone, “don’t fall in the water!”

One of the most common questions we got before leaving was, “how are you going to keep the kids from going overboard?”  This was usually asked in a tone on the sliding scale from concerned to accusatory.  (Now, really.  Did you honestly think we wouldn’t have a safety system in place?  That your question was our very first prompt to consider this topic?  “Oh, safety!  Gee, Erik, we forgot the safety!  Now what?”)

Ahem.

Here we have a lovely photo illustrating The System.

 As you can see, both girls are wearing PFDs.  Fancy PFDs imported from Great Britain, I might add, after no small bit of asking around and listening to cruisers with kids.  As you can also see, they are wearing harnesses connected to a crash bar.  They cannot undo the harnesses; they loop through webbing on their backs, and the other end is far too difficult to open.

This would normally be the point where I would tell you a funny story about a safety-related disaster, but, thankfully, I don’t have any of those, and I hope I never will.  Both Stylish and Indy know the rules well, and they are quick to catch Erik and me out if we try to set a toe outside the cockpit without our own lifejackets.  Even in the shallow waters of the ICW, lifejackets are the rule.  Hooray, safety!  So rest easy, friends, at least on this point.