Crossblog with Carlsen.

Hi, I'm Ian of icarlsen.wordpress.com. Travis and I have been exchanging blogs. This is a story that involves me.

Does anyone remember the Brendan Voyage? Tim Severin rebuilds an old Irish carragh and sails to the new world trying to figure out if St. Brendan the monk made it to Newfoundland from Ireland around 500AD or not. Well this story is like that. Kind of.

A friend of mine named Charge hosts an annual party known as the "Rage-A-Thon" at this abandoned summer camp behind his parent's house. The party is ridiculous. Bonfires, alcohol, sleeping in old cabins, wandering the woods with hastily constructed gasoline-soaked t-shirt torches. Re-damn-diculous. Following this event at some point is usually a "Chill-A-Thon" which, as the name sugguests, is a bit more toned down and more of just a drinking-in-the-woods event. The events of this story take place in the aftermath of one "Chill-A-Thon."

Vlad (also known here as Malkav) and I awoke after a restless sleep in a soccer field, covered in dew, crawled into a house, snagged an extra hour of sleep before being woken up by Charge. We had scones and coffee, or some other breakfast product. We discussed the days events, specifically the fact that there was the Maine Highland Games Festival going on the next town over. Now, I'm Scottish and fairly proud of my heritage, I own a kilt with my family tartan on it, I like stouts and dark ales, I practice my Glaswegian brogue regularly, and most importantly in this situation, I was in the mood for some haggis pies and caber tossing. Vlad is Irish by heritage but in all cases is a man who will never refuse an adventure of some sort. Charge knew the area—the beach where the games were taking place was just across the bay—and had in his mind a better way of getting over there.

- "We could take the catamaran I built..."
- "Catamaran?"
- "Yeah, well... sort of..."

We agreed before even seeing it. The idea was perfect, we would paddle our way across the bay like members of some forgotten New England Maori tribe, storm the beach, and hopefully sneak in without paying admission. We dug some vintage bikes out of Father Charge's garage (the man comes from a rich heritage of awesome) and pedaled down the road to where Charge had his catamaran moored.

The catamaran, was not built per-se, but rather a canoe and a kayak lashed together with an innovative mixture of plywood, duct tape and nylon rope. The canoe had a leak and a bail can floating in a mixture of brownish water, the kayak looked a little more stable and a majority of the plywood was dry and above water.

Now I stood there for a brief few seconds looking at this marvel. I had a brief vision of getting out to the middle of the bay, the canoe taking in more water than we could bail and in the end dragging the whole contraption under. We'd be treading water and trying to hold on to our paddles, when gingerly one shoed foot would bump the completely submerged boat and I would feel it give up and sink away towards the unknown depths. But I put this out of my head. I knew how to swim. So did everyone else. Plus, I trusted Charge's craftsmanship, and more importantly, he seemed to trust it. If we sunk, we sunk and our story would be all the richer.

We had three paddles and some provisions and life jackets, took our shoes off and climbed aboard. We pushed off and surprisingly enough we floated. (I'm exaggerating. Honestly the catamaran was not that bad, Charge did a good job of putting it together.) Two people paddling in the front and one person in back steering and lending the occasional stroke to propel us along. The going was a lot smoother than expected and the weather was nice enough to make the cool water bearable. We were unstoppable. We were the Scots-Maori.

It took us about forty-five minutes to get across to the games. When we pulled up to the beach we realized we had been spotted by a guard working the games. A man with a walkie-talkie approached us.

- "What are you guys doing?"
- "We wanted to stop by and see some of the games."
- "Do you have cash to pay to get in?"
- "Nope. We just came from across the bay, were hoping we wouldn't have to since we arrived by catamaran."
- "Oh. Well, let me see."

The guard had a hard time explaining our situation to the guy up front. After a while it was decided we could get in but we had to go to the front and pay. I can't remember if we actually did pay. All I remember is we got some haggis pie, saw some dancing and watched some huge guys in kilts toss heavy things this way and that. I also met my Uncle, Aunt and two cousins, all who looked pretty shocked that I showed up in a catamaran with two other guys who all looked dirty and hung-over. I'm pretty sure they put a call into my mother.

I don't think Mum would mind this story at all.