Yippee!!

I was listening to the radio in the car the other day and the hosts were talking about what fun it is to do something you used to do as a kid. For example, one of the hosts was saying how he just had a water slide installed at his house and how it makes him feel like a kid again when he slides down and splashes into the water.

That reminded me of something that happened on our boat as we were in the middle of our trip to Puerto Rico.
Every week we must hold a safety meeting. Each week the subject of the meeting changes. One week we might hold a fire drill, another week we may go over the "man overboard" drill.
Each week when the general alarm sounds, signaling the start of another exciting safety meeting, the crew grabs their life preservers and we head to the wheel house with the excitement of cows going to the slaughter house.

At the end of this particular meeting our Captain, smiling says, "I have some good news, we have a bunch of flares, smoke bombs and rocket flares that are out of date."
Wow, why didn't you tell us. What this means is, we get to play with fireworks!

The reaction of the crew was very similar to that of a bunch of 12 year olds who were just handed a box of fire crackers.
Yipee!

So, out to the deck we went and acted like kids again.
The Captain demonstrated the basic flare we would use to attracted attention if we had to abandon ship.



Then the Captain demonstrated the rocket flare.



This baby packs quite a punch.



As you can see there is a pattern here and it is that the Captain was the only one having any fun.
We finally convinced him it would be nice if he shared.

So Brad, one of our deckhands, got to play with the Captains toys.



The radio show hosts were correct. We all felt like kids again.