Flashes of Panic

We discovered a few weekends ago that the Mystic River boathouse on Shore Drive near Assembly Square, run by the Somerville Boys and Girls Club, rents canoes and pedal boats at $5/hour. So yesterday we went down to check it out. We made two trips, actually, since the first time (shortly after 1) there was a sign on the door saying, “7/21 hours: 3 to 8”.

On our return, they took my license (collateral), gave us life jackets, and pushed a pedal boat off the dock for us.

In hindsight, a canoe would’ve been a better idea, but I was fascinated by the idea of the pedal boat. It turned out that the rudder in a pedal boat is largely ineffectual (it appeared to have two bearings, “veer left” and “veer right,” without much room in between,) and also, the work one does in cranking the pedals is inefficiently applied to the water—in other words, working harder doesn’t move you faster.

Nonetheless, we probably set a range record from the boathouse. In the hour and a half after we set out, we made our way down to check out the dam on the southeast side of the Orange Line bridge, and up to the Revere Beach Parkway bridge. (I suspect this inlet has a name, but I don’t know what it is.)

The day was pretty nice, but we probably would’ve had a better time in a less balky craft. Alas, I neglected to take pictures. The majority of the visible wildlife was avian; ducks, a flotilla of geese returning from a shopping trip to Target (or Petsmart?), several smaller, busy guys (terns of some sort?) and a larger bird which may have been an owl; I didn’t get a closer look.

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