View from the Water

My photographer friend messaged me this morning, saying that the beautiful day called for a picnic. I one-upped him and suggested we picnic on one of the canal boat cruises (food + fun). It worked out that we ended up picnicking on the canal walk and then taking the cruise, so we did get to enjoy lunch outside.

We stopped by Tarrant's for a couple of picnic salads, one Cobb and one Tuna Nicoise. Our picnic basket was a plastic bag, if that tells you something about us (if it doesn't, try reading my tongue-in-cheek picnic piece at my former employer's website, here.) Anticipating a lot of sun on the water, we'd both brought hats and, for a change, he'd remembered his camera.

When I took my first canal cruise a few years ago, I remember being struck by the views from the water, so unlike any other of Tobacco Row and the hills to the west. I'd come back for a second cruise just to take pictures of it all.

So if my untrained eye was impressed with it, surely someone who makes money taking pictures would be. And he was, snapping furiously the whole time. Hell, he was even taking pictures of us while we sat there waiting for the boat (shall I look pensive?).

We enjoyed our shady lunch chatting with the boat captain ("I'm not normal, so I'm going to make this fun!" he promised. Probably just as well that we were only going to be in three feet of water...) and a woman visiting from upstate New York with her speed-skating champion grandson (sunglasses, iPod, sullen).

In fact, it turned out that we were the only local residents on the cruise, accompanied as we were by visitors from England, NC, NY, and and a boisterous group from Philly.

Our captain regaled the guests with stories of Tropical Storm Gaston's fury, the perils of the Mighty James and an encyclopedic listing of long-forgotten cigarette brands. The visitors got the critter sitings they wanted with snapping turtles and great blue herons putting in appearances.

His tangents meandered, but he showed a lot of enthusiasm for the city and its offerings. He warned us that 5:00 is the bewitching hour for Richmond museums to close up, suggesting an early start for museum visiting. "Don't think you can go in at 2:30 and see everything," he warned ominously.

Since the captain knew it wasn't my first cruise, he made a point of asking me when we disembarked if I'd heard anything new this time around. Honestly, I'd been sort of lost inside of my own head enjoying the views for most of his spiel and what I did hear I had heard before, but that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"I had a great time," I enthused. Which was entirely true, if not exactly the answer to his question.