Valiant 42

We're going to an art symposium in Yuma, Arizona this weekend, so instead of waiting around in an airport for an hour or two to transfer to a little propeller plane (a planelette? a planito?) and another hour flight we decided to fly to San Diego, rent a car, and drive across the desert to Yuma. Besides saving us some hassle and money this also meant we got to see Jim and Sheilagh on their boat, which is docked in a marina right outside the airport (their slip is literally less than half a mile from the terminal). Since they've put the boat up for sale we were worried that the boys were never going to get to see it, but now those fears have been allayed. Sure they won't remember it, but at least they have seen it. Anyway, to the pictures....

As soon as we got on the boat Evan immediately set about exploring all the nooks and crannies, like the forward berth:

and the anchor chain locker in the forward berth, or as it's also known, the Paige Escape Hatch:

The Paige Escape Hatch? When our nieces were having a sleepover on the boat a year or two ago, Paige (the youngest one... I think she was 4 at the time) semi-woke up in the middle of the night. Disoriented and finding herself in a strange place she tried to get out of bed by climbing through this door. Fortunately she wasn't able to get it open before Jim got to her.

But I digress. Here's Evan scaling the ladder to get back up on deck:

He took a break from exploring to hang out with Alex while Steph changed his diaper:

But then it was right back to scrambling around. We spent quite a while in the cockpit, as there was lots of cool stuff to see and do there. He got to pull all the rope out of a bag and then stuff it back in (evidently that's more fun than it sounds), pretend to steer the boat, and climb around on all the various chairs. I think these stern seats were his favorites, probably because they were the highest and suspended out over the water a bit:

Grandpa Jim showed him some of the tackle they used for fishing in Mexico (when they fished, which I don't think was very often -- neither Jim nor Sheilagh are big fish people):

Alex spent most of his time on board below deck hanging out with Mom and Grandma while they talked and got lunch ready, which he seemed fine with:

And no, that's not a baby megaphone, just a plastic funnel for Alex to chew on. Any pacifier in a storm, ya know?