"There's nothing else that looks like what's on the chart," I answered. "And who knows how shallow the water on the other side of the little island is?" I could tell that Kay was worried I'd bring us to grief by following the rules.
"Go up in the bow," I said, trying not to sound too captainly. "Watch the bottom, and I'll go dead slow." I steered into the passage. It felt as if the granite and pine were crowding us into a tunnel, despite several yards of water on each side of the boat. How much was beneath us, though, was what mattered.
Houseboats for hire at Egan Marine on Pigeon Lake, two hours northeast of Toronto.
(Gerald Martineau - The Washington Post)
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And then, when we were only halfway through, I simply decided I had done the right thing and opened the throttle. I knew I was on the red dotted line, knew that the glacier's gouge across the Canadian Shield had been deep enough, right at this spot and perhaps no other nearby, to let us safely pass.
Sometimes you win by staying inside the lines, and sometimes you have a better time of it when -- as with our mooring on Wolf Island -- you wander a little off course. And sometimes, you get to see just how much you've gained by doing the right amount of each. It can make a boat trip successful, and it can get two people through nearly 20 years together.
Having learned that much, I was hardly surprised by what Kay suggested as we ran down the last few miles of Pigeon Lake.
"Remember when I said you could live on a boat like this?"
"Yeah. The hypothetical you. One."
"It's something we should think about," she said. "It's just the two of us now. All that money is tied up in the house."
"A house full of stuff."
"Sell the stuff. Put it in storage."
"And the dog," I said.
"The dog loves the water."
"Okay. I will think about it. But you know what I want?"
"What?"
"I want a boat like the guy who was grilling the lamb."
"Is that so?" Kay said. "I wonder what you'll do for a living."
William G. Scheller lives in Vermont. He last wrote for the Magazine about bicycling in Prince Edward Island.
