My, how time passes

I am amazed at how 20 years have flown. Our kids, who were so much a part of our camping activities, have left the nest, though they still join us. Yet we get a lot of pleasure out of going to Kejimkujik, just the two of us.

A couple of weeks ago we camped along coastal Maine, and next spring would like to camp down in the Carolinas, watching the spring bird migration. We do it either in tents or in a little Trillium trailer we picked up. I told a friend that when we contemplated purchasing the trailer we were worried about what our kids would think, since they are purists and might think not camping in a tent was not camping at all.

Our friend said, "Don't worry. They'll grow out of it."

These were serious considerations, especially since this is the one hundredth anniversary of The Tent Dwellers. Our son, however, who works at Kejimkujik and who chairs the Tent Dwellers Festival, said he guessed that if Eddie Breck and Albert Bigelow Paine could have had more elaborate camping equipment, they would have used it.

Now, my brother has gone a different direction, spending his time sailing. Someone said that owning a sailboat was a question of standing near it and tossing money. I love sailing, but I am reasonably happy sailing on his boat, and not on my own.

The Sunday before last we were sitting in the big main stage tent at the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival for the gospel concert, one of the most popular events of the festival. Someone came to get my brother. An RCMP officer was waiting on the lawn for him, telling him that his boat was on fire.

My brother and his wife had sailed their 29-foot sailboat from Mahone Bay to the Lunenburg front harbour for the festival and were staying on it while attending all of the events. The RCMP officer drove him down to the marina, where firemen were putting out the last of the flames.

The boat was ruined, along with its equipment, and their possessions. The fire burned out the interior of the cabin and sleeping berths and left what had once been a thing of beauty a stinking, melted mess. I won't get into how it might have started, as that will be a question for investigators and insurance people, but my brother and his wife were in a state of shock.

We helped where we could. We stayed around Lunenburg an extra day, while logistics were dealt with. My brother, though, intends to get back on the water as soon as he can. He will obtain another boat, perhaps by making a trip down the eastern seaboard, where boats can always be bought.

While we sorted through the mess, a sailboat from Quebec pulled into the marina. On board was a tanned couple from Quebec City. Though the man barely spoke English, he was able to tell us how he had sailed down the St. Lawrence, to the Magdalen Islands, around Cape Breton, to Halifax, then down to Lunenburg. He and his wife were doing this alone, in a small sailboat, and having a ball.

He told us he was continuing on and across to Maine, where he would sail among the islands and then down the seaboard. It would be a bit of a challenge to get across the Gulf of Maine, a trip that we made a couple of weeks ago aboard the Cat from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth.

I may join my brother if he treks off to find a sailboat somewhere in the coastal U.S. It would be fun. Sailboats show up on eBay and on the Internet all the time (though buying a sailboat over the internet works best if you have a chance to actually see the sailboat, since you need to know what you are getting).

Meantime, we will likely be camping. Not much beats a hike in the woods or sitting by a campfire with a morning cup of coffee.

Tom Sheppard can be reached at twsheppard@gmail.com.