Voyage of the Honeybadger

Last year a bunch of our friends rented a pontoon boat which they christened "The Honeybadger" and tooled around Lake Sunapee for a lazy Saturday in June.  Swimming, sunning, eating, drinking, relaxing... I can't exactly remember why we couldn't go...something about gardening chores or maybe laundry piles?  Anyway, we weren't about to miss it the second time around, after hearing everyone else rave about how much fun it had been the previous year.

This year the Honeybadger "sailed" on June 9th.  We won the meteorological lottery with a blue-sky, 75 degree day, and headed down to the docks with all our gear right after t-ball.  The kids hopped aboard like old salts and had great fun "driving" the boat, fishing, and swimming (freezing) in the still very chilly lake water.  The adults ate finger sandwiches and drank rum punches and put our feet up while we cruised around the lake gawking at all the multi-million dollar homes that line the shore of Lake Sunapee.  We think we even identified Steven Tyler's house.  Maybe.  Kyle, or as we like to call him, Captain Kennedy, navigated the Honeybadger neatly over to Sunapee Harbor in the early afternoon so the kids could get gelato at Marzelli's and then it was back to the ship for more fun.

The highlight of the whole day (certainly from the kids' point of view) was when Molly, Aiden and Ben all got out on the tube behind the boat.  When they tried to pull themselves in using the tethered rope, all the weight on one side flipped the tube over dumping the three of them into the drink unexpectedly.  It looked like the tube was going to fall on top of them, maybe trapping one of them under there or causing some sort of panic (they were all wearing life jackets), and when Sonya yelled "GO! GO! GO!" to the guys near the stern, Rich and Mike jumped in with clothes and sunglasses and hats on to rescue them.  Of course, by the time the dads hit the water, the three kids were up and smiling, already swimming back to the boat saying "THAT WAS AWESOME! LET'S DO IT AGAIN!"  Honeybadgers don't care about being flipped, obviously.