Messing Around...

Friday morning, the day of the US Gondola Nationals qualifying rounds,
a bunch of us traveled from the Sunset Gondola docks to the racing area
in the various boats that made up the Venetian fleet that weekend.

I climbed around on the bow of one boat and then jumped to another.
It wasn't really anything amazing, but it prompted Stefano to do a little "gondola weirdness" of his own.

He rowed over so he could reach out and grab the ferro of the other boat...

stepped on the bow, and proceeded to row boat boats.

I suppose it's the closest a gondolier gets to riding two dolphins.

Scottish author Kenneth Grahame wrote a short phrase of pure brilliance
in his book The Wind in the Willows:
"There's nothing . . . absolutely nothing . . . half so much worth doing
as simply messing around in boats."

Few statements have ever made more perfect sense to me,
and as you can see from the above photos, my friend Stefano agrees.