Last week one of our adventures involve dropping 70 feet in the air, getting spied on by an old man and getting a stern talking from the harbor master. Yep all in a days work with the bosun’s chair and Tarzan swing.
A couple hours earlier while cleaning out a bunch of old rope cupboards Dailin found a canvas chair that looked suspiciously like it could be used to pull people to the top of the mast. That theory fit perfectly with the “Tarzan Swing” rope I found the day before. Since we didn’t really know what the rope went to on the top of the mast we voted Eli (the second youngest boy) to be the Guinea pig. We figured he was the lightest and not knowing if it would break, that seamed like the best idea…
After winching Eli up (swinging him around on the way up is just a given to add to the experience) and having him screech a lot more then we would have liked we decided it was safe and it quickly became a popular ride. That’s about when an old man about 200 feet away on land stopped his jog and started staring at us.
Getting over the fear of dangling 50 feet in the air by a thin rope didn’t take that long and pretty soon we where flinging our selfs haphazardly around the mast, it was a huge rush of adrenalin from that high. (on a side note, that would have been a really great time to spit down on any one that had annoyed us that week… I am not admitting anyone did that) Then a really great idea came, since the line was wrapped around a winch that let the person down, we where kinda forced to let them down slowly. That is until we realized we could hold their line and then let out 8 feet of slack and then let go and let them drop that much mwahaha.
That about when our friend Mr. Lookyloo on shore, pulled out his video camera and started filming us like we where a riot fight. Feeling a little weirded out when he kept filming us for ten minutes we waved at him and only got a glare. We decided to not let him ruin our awesome precarious swing and continued dropping and swinging around.
Later that night and thinking all was fine, Mom and Dad left (they made us promise not to use the chair while they where gone). That’s when the harbour master showed up. He was pretty worked up and said some one complained that kids where jumping off the mast and that he was liable (thanks Mr. Lookyloo). So I talked my way out of it and he left. Needless to say we have not used the bosun’s chair again… Yet.
— Jaeden’s Perspective (age 16) —
It’s a good thing that we got that story from your perspective Jaeden, just for the record you know 😉
I loved this story-do you have any pictures? My kids are so jealous of you guys-I can’t believe that there is a family out there that is this courageous.
I was taking pictures because I once did that and wish I could again. The harbor master forced me to share my video because someone told him I was taking pictures of kids!!
Haha we totally do that all the time. If you wrap it around the spreaders a certain way you can sling shot yourself around to the other side and land on the boom. If you get a rock climbing harness it works really good too.