Everything's Better

This is me at my hypocritical best. I have never really followed the blogs of others, and am horrible at maintaining a journal of any depth or length. My hope is that this will act as a place for me to digest my thoughts about the vast array of water-related activities that I want to explore.

If no one reads it, that's fine. I don't assert that I have any answers for anything or anyone. However, if anyone ever sees something I wrote and gets excited enough to actually try some of these activities, I am delighted.

I never really thought much about water, except as a resource. I was raised in Colorado where arguing about water rights and jealously defending of every drop is just the way things are done. Colorado has been in something like a 30 year "drought," though at some point I think we just have to reset the scale and call that "the weather."

Because it is a largely agrarian state, still, the little water that DOES fall there, is completely spoken for. It enhances the culture of haves and have-nots there by adding one more thing the Haves get to have. There is a private recreational lake east of Boulder that I used to drive by. It is barely more than a glorified mud puddle, but the right to water ski in this tiny little pond is strictly (and expensively) regulated. That notion now seems completely insane to me, now that I am in California and can walk with my kids to the lagoon and play in the water year-round for free.

Even in the "public" reservoirs, the water level is usually so low there is little chance to boat or do anything more than fish. I took a couple of sailing lessons on Boulder Reservoir and between the gusty wind caused by the mountains and the relatively tiny scale of that reservoir, there was not much to do beyond learn the basics. Certainly no exploration or racing or anything more than... um... well tack a couple times and jibe a couple times, that's about it.

I am not deliberately bagging on Colorado. That's still my birthplace and will always be where I spent my formative years. I just can't imagine ever moving back now that I have lived near Water.

Oh, Lord, I love the water. I took up SCUBA two years ago and it is what I would do if I could only have one hobby ever again. However, I don't have to be deep to be happy. I bought a tiny, broken, kinda horrible boat that I love and am working on. It's 16 feet long, BARELY fits 2 people, and the mast broke the day I bought it, so I have been re-rigging it in various configurations, trying to find one that I like. As indicated before, I fish, I snorkel, I swim... I even get recharged by just watching the ocean.

So, this blog will be my week by week exploration of water life. It might bore you silly, and that's fine. Like I said, this is supposed to be my thinkin' spot and I am sharing it with whoever cares.

Halbert