The Second Half of the Fourth

Rhiannon - Fisherman Bay

The second half of the fourth was spent out on the water. Jim and I canoed out to his new boat The Rhiannon. First time I saw her and WoW! she is a "nice chunk of wood" as Mr. Bill Bill said when he and some other folks paddled by in The Tern to admire her. Rhiannon is a William Atkins Clione design wooden double-ended ketch. She is sweet and pretty and is a youngun at 25 years of age. She's been hiding out in British Columbia until Jim spied her, fell in love and brought her down to these waters.

Jim & Rhiannon

He's got plans. Big plans! Crazy plans. But he's in love with her so everything seems possible and probable and doable and well...he'll probably pull it off. More power to you! Just be careful, kay!

It was so nice to be out on the water. The bay was chock full of boats from all over. Everyone was hanging out,partying and waiting for the fireworks to happen out on the spit. We had front row from where we were; being the closest boat to the beach, but I doubt there were any bad seats out in the bay. We ate burritos, drank beer and lazed around waiting for the big show. I'm not a big lover of fireworks. I think they are an incredible waste of money and detrimental to the environment but occasionally I watch and enjoy, and our island does put on a good show. In fact we're famous for our fireworks.

Here's an old archived article about our infamous fourth event: The Biggest Little Fireworks Show. After that article was published we received even more infamy for setting the beach on fire, not once but twice, two years in a row. Not only that, a couple years ago right after the parade there was a bomb scare (can't believe I can't find an article on the web about this) and the whole village had to be evacuated. A mother daughter team had the fore site to document that event as it happened and there is now a DVD of the big hoopla surrounding that event called: The Frappuccino Zone now available for $10 at Isabel's Espresso. I bought a copy cause I support the arts man! and was satisfactorily amused. Pick up a copy before it goes out of print and goes the way of The Rhododendron Farm t-shirt (another island legendary tale with something slightly to do with the fourth) and that you can then only hope to score at the dump or the thrift store if you are incredibly lucky like I was.

In any case, there always seems to be something predictably unpredictable that happens on the fourth here. This year all I know is that I had a grand old time being pink in the parade and saw some dang good fireworks front and center out on the water. They were spectacular! Lot's of color in the day, pink and otherwise, but not any saluting to the red, white and blue for me.