Mud, Reeds and Cattails

The Ideal Boat

Article by Roger Rodibaugh

My little skiff dips her rail to the gust that swirls through the willows and rattles the reeds edging the creek, carving a bubbling swath straight for a mud flat. Tacking just as the centerboard judders on the bottom, we cut smartly back across the narrow channel. As we near the far bank, we tack on a header that allows us to skim past a low gravel point. Tack after tack, we work up these knee-deep narrows at sauntering pace, a stone’s toss from either bank—an interesting challenge in the tree-skewed breeze. Sometimes we stir a little mud with the centerboard and touch the peak of the sail to an overhanging willow on the bank. Such is our elemental connection to water, earth, and sky, here in the shallows.

I had departed before daybreak for the hour’s drive to the lake, hoping the good forecast would hold true. It looked like it would as I stood on the dock in the cool northerly, watching the catspaws chasing themselves down the lake.