11. Boat Camping

Just as surely as you went big game fishing yesterday one of the kids in your family will ask tomorrow, "Why don't we buy a boat?"

He'll have a good argument. After all, you did spend what to Andy and Peg is an awful lot of money, even if you did divide the cost of the safari with three friends. You did do a little celebrating after you got back to shore and that cost money, too.

What do you have to show for it? A marlin to collect dust on the wall? Some tuna meat in the freezer and some more down at a smokehouse? And in exchange for the smoke you can have half the meat you caught after it is cured?

For that you spent $50, $100, $150?

Fifty dollars or $100 or $150 is a good beginning toward the cost of a boat, if it's a get-up-and-go boat and not a lace curtain seagoing palace. And look at the things all the mem­ bers of the family can do together with a boat, not just you alone with three carousing buddies.

Fishing, cruising and seeing inshore sights that you never can see and enjoy from land, water skiing, camping. . . .

Boat camping! Families go car camping. Why can't your family go boat camping? Well, you can. All you need is the boat, the same outdoor living gear you use traveling in a station wagon and none of the headaches of traffic, congestion and perhaps hundreds of miles between campsites.

On the water there is no traffic to speak of, no congestion of towns, villages and people and every isolated beach and bank is a probable campsite. What a way to spend a vacation! Cruising inshore waters, water skiing when you feel like it, swimming when the sun is high, fishing for breakfast, dinner and supper if you can stand the taste of fish three times a day. Everything is free, even your lodgings. And the family is all together.

With the cost of a boat amortized over a several-year period, no vacation could be cheaper.

Adding all things up, the least you can do is look.

"Okay," you say, "we'll go look at a boat."

Let us stop you right there; the worst thing you can do is just "go look at a boat." There are more makes and models of boats on the market today than there are automobiles. You don't just go and look at a car, singular. You look at cars, plural. You read the ads and brochures, get the advice and opinions of your friends, maybe check a consumer's rating magazine at the library, go to an auto show if one happens to be handy. Well, you do all these things for boats and more, because over the years you've learned to know a little about cars and just how much do you know about boats?

So be wise and do a lot of reading and inquiring before you set out to do any serious looking. Because—you may as well admit it—you're going to be buying, not merely looking.

What to Look For

You can get a boat and outboard motor and all the extra equipment your family of four will need for something in the neighborhood of $1500, give or take a couple of hundred dollars. The price also depends on where you live, what season of the year it is and how hard a bargain you can drive. You won't be buying a Cadillac, but you will be buying a Rambler.

You ought to get a skiff-type outboard with a planing hull. That's a V-shaped or rounded bottom on the bow end, scaling into a flat bottom on the stern end. That design permits your motor to push the hull onto the surface where it skims along without your nose jutting into the sky and your tail sinking into the sea. Nor is it as inclined to pitch or roll in a chop.

It ought to be sixteen to eighteen feet long, measured on a straight line from stem to stern and not around the gunwale as some manufacturers are given to doing. An outboard motor is just that— a motor positioned outside the boat. So an eight-een-footer will give you just as much funning and fishing space as a twenty-two-foot boat with its engines inboard.

Good boats are made today in wood, aluminum and fiber glass. Aluminum boats stand up beautifully in fresh water. Manufacturers now are using aluminum alloys meant to make the boat saltwater resistant. Whether it does or not is too soon to tell. So if you want a minimum of fuss, fret and main­tenance, you'll get a boat made of fiberglass. But if you're handy with tools and you can do your own upkeep work and if you like to tinker seriously, then wood is just the thing. If you decide on the fiberglass, don't let yourself be lulled into thinking there'll be no maintenance work to be done. There will be, but not nearly so much nor so often. What's more, an improperly made fiberglass boat can come apart at the mold junctures or develop invisible cracks. So, we repeat, check carefully before buying fiberglass—or any boat, for that matter.

Although they shouldn't and you shouldn't let them, there will come times when someone will stand up in the boat . . . and the worst culprit probably will be you. For those standees, you'll need as much freeboard—the height of the sides—as you can get. It will help keep them in the boat and it will give you a knee-brace when playing or boating a fish. More im­portant, sufficient freeboard adds to the seaworthiness of the boat. The boat we're describing isn't meant for taking your wife and children out to sea, but the calmest of sheltered, in­shore waters can be whipped into a frenzy by a sudden sum­mer squall. So make sure of this one thing above all others . . . that you buy a boat that gives you all the seaworthiness you can get.

To be seaworthy, a small boat should have the least possible amount of built-in paraphernalia—superstructure—above the gunwale and therefore in the path of a high wind. A cabin is superstructure, and so a good small boat without cabin will be more seaworthy than a good small boat with cabin.

That means your boat will have no bunks, no head, no galley, none of the homey touches that you'll find you can get along so nicely without. But you will have more cockpit space—open space—for kids, for sun, for fun, for fishing.

Up in the bow, your boat should have a foredeck; in other words the space between gunwales should have a roof over it. It serves to keep out spray, it breaks up water that may wash over your bow and spills it down the sides, thus helping to keep boat and gear dry, and it provides cover for storage space. Be sure the foredeck is sturdy enough to hold your weight because you'll be climbing over it often.

Buy two motors, not just one. The first is the big one that you'll need for the power to get up and go. The second is a little one that you'll keep in reserve and use only for low-power, slow-speed trolling. But, more important, it's your ace in the hole if the big one ever conks out. It even could be your lifesaver in case of a storm. The two motors can be mounted side-by-side and you can tilt either motor out of the water when not in use.

It's more important to have a balanced boat, motor and load hookup than it is to have balanced tackle: for your life doesn't depend upon a rod and reel, but it does depend upon boat, load and motor. So stick with the printed recommenda­tions of the boat manufacturer and let no salesman or other know-it-all tell you differently when you pick out your motor.

There's an excellent organization fronting for and speaking for outboard boatmen the country over, seeing to their safety in every way possible. That organization is the Outboard Boat­ing Club of America and it has a highly accurate and scientific formula for relating boat to motor to maximum load. Repu­table manufacturers abide by the OBC rating. You, with the safety of your family in your hands, should abide by it, too.

The size of the big motor you will require will be de­termined by whether or not you'll be using the boat for water skiing. If not, then about a twenty-five or thirty horsepower kicker will suffice. If yes, then you'll need forty or forty-five horsepower to provide the speed and power to get a skiier out of the water and onto his feet. About a five or seven horse­power motor is big enough for your auxiliary.

The place for the motor on an outboard, just in case you didn't know, is the stern, secured to the transom. A transom is what a landlubber would call the rear wall of the boat. Anil the rear wall is the most vulnerable part of the boat because the weight of the motor makes it the part that rides lowest in the water.

In rough weather the stern may be the end that swings to­ward the sea and therefore ships water the fastest. So the transom has to be strong enough to withstand a heavy sea, sturdy enough to bear the weight of a big motor, and high enough both to accommodate a big motor's long shaft and keep out the sea. The Outboard Boating Club's manual of standards lays down this mandate: "A twenty-inch transom height should be used on all boats having an OBC rating of thirty horsepower and over."

Be sure that the boat you buy has that twenty-inch tran­som and then go the Outboard Boating Club one better—get a boat with self-bailing well inside the twenty-inch transom. What you'll have, in effect, will be a two-transom boat and at least double the safety factor.

The well is just what the word implies, a sunken space. It will have run-off spouts to let water pass through if the tran­som dips into the sea. Be sure the transom cutout is wide enough for both your big and your little motor to ride side-by-side and that it is engineered to allow your propellers to be tilted completely out of the water when necessary.

The days of joystick stern-steering are just about over; today's outboards are operated by remote control. That puts you up forward where you ought to be, seeing where you're going, not where you've been. Placed up forward, your steer­ing apparatus becomes just as vital as the driving mechanism of an auto. Have a proven mechanic, and nobody else, install your remote control system. Check that steering wheel and be certain it's for a man-sized boat and not for a toy auto. And a backless plank is no better as a driver's seat in a boat than it would be in a car. So don't have one, certainly not for long hauls. You want a driver's seat with a back to lean against and a place alongside you for Mother or one of the kids. Two camp stools or small yacht chairs in the cockpit and the whole family is seated comfortably.

Now that we've got the big things out of the way, let's take a quick rundown of the little things, like the windshield, a Navy top, the hardware and the spray rails.

What's a spray rail? It's a narrow strip—no bigger than a faring strip—girdling the outside of the hull just above the waterline. When the boat moves at high speed, the spray rail keeps the spray from splashing into the boat. Good boats have them.

A Navy top is a canvas canopy that serves as a cabin to keep out the weather but which can be put up and down like the top on a convertible. When the sun is hot or the rain comes pelting down it's a mighty handy thing.

Your boat hardware will take a beating over the years— boats are meant to last lots of years—what with the strain of line and things against wind, weather and tide. All hardware attached to your boat should be bolted clear through and not merely screwed to the skin.

As for the windshield—you don't really need one, not if you like the wind and the rain and the spray in your eyes, nose and face. But if you like the idea of keeping your eyes open and your face the way nature made it, then you'll have a windshield that's strong and sturdy and not a delicate fugi­tive from a toy shop window. And it should have wipers, either hand-operated or electric.

Then there are many other bits of this and that that you'll have to have as added attachments—like an anchor, a pair of oars, fenders to keep from getting scratched up by some­body's dock, buoyant seat cushions that have been approved by the Coast Guard, a horn or whistle and a life ring.

And don't forget a fire extinguisher. The only kinds the Coast Guard approves are foam, dry chemical and carbon dioxide. Get one of these and no other and have it mounted in a handy place and here's hoping you never have to use it.

The life ring is a mighty handy tiling to have around, espe­cially when somebody's swimming off the boat. Secure it to a long piece of line, hitch the other end of the line to a boat cleat, and toss it over the side of your anchored craft before any of you go into the water for a dip. The kids will love to play with it and it's guaranteed to keep them on the surface where they belong.

There's one time when you do not—repeat, do not—attach a life ring to a life line and that is when someone falls over­board from a moving boat. Toss him a free ring and the moving boat won't pull it out of his grasp. Then circle quickly back, cut off your motor to keep him from being injured by the propeller, and pick him up.

The law says you must have lights and spells out just what kind of lights they must be. Anything less can get you in trouble: collision trouble, heavy penalty trouble, civil suit trouble. And you'll be lucky if you don't have physical injuries to go with those troubles. You must have a bow light visible for one mile at night and a stern light visible for two miles. The bow light will be in two sections with a metal shield as the divider. The light on the portside—Lefty Gomez was a portside—must be red, the light on the starboard side must be green. The stern light must be white, it must be positioned higher than your bow light and it must be visible from any and all directions.

Now that you've got the boat, don't forget the insurance— it's similar to auto insurance. And last, where are you going to keep the boat? You have a choice of two or three berthing spots—a state, county or municipally owned marina, a privately operated boat station, or your own backyard. The first two will cost you the price of seasonal rental, the last will cost you the price of a boat trailer. Which one of the three anchorages you decide upon is strictly up to you alone and what facilities are available where you live.

Boating Know-How

You've got the boat, you've got the motor, you've got the insurance, you've got the trailer or mooring berth. You've got everything you need to get you out on the water except one great big thing—know-how. You don't drive a car just because you own one. First you acquire the know-how.

Yet the road can't come up and hit you and swamp you. The water can. The road has plainly marked lanes and cars supposedly stay within them. Not so with the water. When wind and rain come up, all a motorist has to do is close his windows and keep on motoring. It isn't that simple for a boatman. The worst a road has is some potholes that the highway department soon will mend. The water has tides, eddies and currents that nobody can mend.

If you are smart enough to learn how to drive a car before you venture out on a comparatively safe highway and the law is smart enough to force you, then you'll be even smarter to learn how to operate a boat before you venture out on the water. In some sections of the country there is no law to force you, primarily because local politicians haven't yet learned of the growing need for strictly enforced boating regulations. Don't let the shortsightedness of the no-law-makers jeopardize the safety of your family. Take a course in boat handling. Become proficient. Let every move become second nature.

Coast Guard regulations on boats and navigation will help you. Coast Guard auxiliaries and boating clubs also will help you. In fact, the last two do more than help. They teach boat handling to anyone wise enough to take the course. Their fee? Usually nothing, because those clubs and auxiliaries are made up of family men just like you and they're selfish about the welfare of their wives and kids. If the safety practices they teach will prevent you from having a collision, they'll have prevented you from having a collision with one of them. It's as basic as that. In a couple of years you'll probably join them and become a teacher, too.

It would be presumptuous of us to attempt to teach you all there is to know about boat handling—which entails naviga­tion, rules of the road, how to read the weather and what to do in what kind of a sea among other things—in this one chapter of a book about fishing. You'll not learn boat handling in this chapter or book or in any other book. Theory, perhaps yes, but actual seeing and practice and doing, no.

As an example, let's go back to that red and green bow light. How do you read them? What do they mean? What do you do? Remember it's night or there'd be no light and it's split by a shield, red on the portside, green on the starboard side.

If you can see both red light and green light, another boat is coming directly toward you. You must swing to starboard.

Now we're going to ask you a question.

Is starboard left or right?

That's the question. Very simple, very fundamental. But did you have to pause and think for a couple of seconds before deciding that starboard is right? Remember we told you Lefty Gomez was a portside, so you had an easy reminder to go by. Well, even one lost second was too long, for two boats ap­proaching each other head on and each doing only ten knots an hour—a knot is a bit more than a mile—are heading for a collision at the rate of thirty-four feet a second!

We'll give you a simple sea ditty to go by:

When both lights you see ahead Right your wheel and show your red.

But all the book-learned ditties in the world aren't as good as visual and personal teaching and practice. Only training will give you subconscious, split-second reflex action.

While you're learning to handle your newly acquired boat, you also can be shopping around for your camping equipment so that you'll be all set to go when your vacation rolls around. That's when the money you're spending will start returning dividends.

The Cost

You've already spent about $1,500 on boat and motor and another $400 or so on a trailer if you decided home will be your harbor. Figure about another $150 for camping equip­ment—r-tent, sleeping bags, pots and pans; the lasting things— and your total amortizable outlay—is about $2,050. Let's call it $2,100. Everything you've bought, with reasonable care and repair, should last about ten years. That measures out at $210 a year. Insurance will cost about $75 a year. Now your year's cost is $285 and we'll call it $300. We won't add any thing for gas for your outboard motor; if you weren't going on a boat camping vacation, you'd probably use your car to get where you're going.

So the cost of your two weeks' vacation—the cost for all four of you, mind you—will be $300. And you'll still have the boat to take you fishing all the rest of the year and the camping equipment for any weekend that you decide to just get up and go. Where else and how else can you have all that for only $300?

And you'll actually have money coming to you every time you buy a gallon of gas for your boat! For both Uncle Sam and virtually every state in the union will give you a tax refund since your boat adds no wear and tear to the roads and highways and that is what gasoline taxes primarily are for.

Figure 22

Just collect your receipts as you buy gasoline and fill out the necessary federal and state forms. The United States In­ternal Revenue Service will rebate two cents on every gallon if you fill out its form number 843 and file before September 30 of every year. Inquire locally for your state's requirements —and be sure that you do, because state tax refunds average about six cents a gallon.

Equipment

It took the Indians to invent canoe camping and it took one of the marvels of civilized man—the outboard motor—to give birth to boat camping. As a family sport, it has become the biggest thing since croquet.

Just like the Indians, civilized man now can go anywhere, stop anywhere, cook anywhere, camp anywhere. The only thing the Indian could do that the civilized man can't do was live off the land. But he can live off the rippling waters—live off it for as long as every family's Andy and Peg can bear the taste of fish. And he can forage for the rest of his larder as he goes along.

No, not forage in the forest, but forage in the little towns and villages that mark the civilized man's trail. For one of the joys of boat camping is the ease with which you can return to the beaten path for side trips into hamlets where there are sights to see, either historic, picturesque or both. Those side excursions serve two purposes—without them you couldn't keep Andy and Peg happy on a camping trip, and it gives Mother time to forage the grocer's shelves and the butcher's icebox just as she does at home.

So with your food supply just waiting for you to come and get it, you can do another thing that the Indians did—travel light. And he that travels light travels right. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take any food with you, because you should. But staples and a two- or three-day supply of food are all you need start out from home with. Just how many days' supply you take along will be determined by the itinerary you plan. The initial supply will run low at just about the time that Andy and Peg will grow bored with doing nothing but boating, fishing and swimming. So it will be time to go to town.

We could bore you right now, too, by giving you a run­down on what staples and other mealtime things to take with you. But Mother knows best and she doesn't need a book to tell her what makes a minimum-fuss meal, whether it be at home or in camp. Nor does she need be told that potatoes don't have to be peeled anymore because they come in boxes now, already mashed and just waiting to be heated.

But we will tell you that you shouldn't go shopping for the camping equipment and come home pleased as Punch and all loaded down with a thing on the market today called outdoor food.

Outdoor food is packaged neatly and nicely and it's tasty, too. Just follow the directions and whip up the contents of one box and you've got a delicious meal for four. That's what it says on the box. But they didn't reckon with the fact that two of you are growing children who've spent a day on the water or that you and Mother like to eat, too. Two, or maybe even three, boxes of outdoor food is what you'd need for a meal for four hungry people. And so pre-packaged outdoor food becomes mighty expensive eating.

Mother can make just as tasty a dish at a fraction of the cost and with no more fuss merely by using a box of fast-cooking rice, a couple of cans of condensed cream of chicken soup and a can of peas. Presto, rice and chicken dinner!

Mother also can do wonders with scrounging around the house and coming up with camping equipment. On the list of things to have that you'll come to shortly you'll find that we've included sleeping bags. They're great, especially when the temperature gets below about forty-five degrees.

But Mother can make sleeping bags before you ever leave home, simply by doubling up a couple of blankets and pinning three sides of one to three sides of the other and leaving the fourth side open for crawling in and out.

Here are the things that make up a complete camping outfit:

Tent                                         Flashlights
Tent repair kit                           Line
Sleeping bags                           Air mattresses
Cooking utensils                       Water bags
Icebox                                      Tarpaulin
Stove                                       Table
First aid kit                               Insect repellents
Three-quarter ax                       Paper bags
Carpentry tools             Trenching tool
Transistor radio

Let's look at them one at a time.

Tent. The types, sizes and styles of tents are many and there is a practical use for all of them. But we think the best for family campers is the Baker tent shown in figure 22. One just six feet square will provide a nice private room for Mother and Peg and you and Andy can sleep under the canopy. If it rains, they'll let you in and there will be room enough for four. If there's a chill, just open the flaps, roll up the canopy as a fire precaution, and build a small campfire in the door­way. You'll delight in the heat that fills the interior.

Before you buy, check the stitching, grommets and seams. You don't want chain stitching, single seams or machine-fastened grommets. They all give up too easily. The new pastels and candy-striped colors are pretty, but old-fashioned green or khaki still stand up the best. Whatever the color, rub it and see if you can rub any of it off. If you can, just think what rain will do.

Some tents have sewed-in waterproof floors and others have sod cloths. The floor models may keep you dry but then you've got the problem of keeping them clean. So we like the sod cloth. It's a canvas band, about twelve inches wide, sewed all around the edges. Just spread the sod cloth on the ground inside the tent and cover the rest of your floor with your tarp. Then, come housekeeping time, you need only roll up the tarp, take it outside and shake it.

Cooking Utensils. Get a set of pots that nest together when not in use. They take up much less room. But discard the thin aluminum frying pan and get an old-fashioned iron skillet with cover. That's also your Dutch oven. Your coffee pot should flare out on the bottom like it was wearing a big bustle. The wide bottom will help keep it from tipping on the camp stove. Your dishes should be of plastic because it's light and unbreakable. Leave mess kits and aluminum cups to your less-fond memories of your military days.

Stove. A two-burner gasoline stove is easiest to carry and easiest for the camp cook to use. But don't set it up and use it aboard the boat. It's too easy to spill gasoline in a rolling boat and a boatman's biggest peril is spilled gasoline. For variety in cooking, you might take along a small charcoal grill and a package of easy-lighting bricks. Don't rely on campfire cooking; dry wood is hard to find along the beaches. But the kids will love it when you can cook by campfire.

Icebox. A picnic-type, and therefore easily portable, icebox is fine. To keep things from swimming around, keep your ice in two-quart milk cartons. Fill the cartons with water, put them in a freezer and, presto, you've got ice. Replenish your supply as you move along by buying ice cubes or cracked ice.

Ax. Don't get an ax with a long handle, it's too bulky. Not a short handle, it makes for too many swings and bends. A three-quarter length handle is just right.

Carpentry Tools. Just the simple things like a hammer, nails, screw driver and small saw. Maybe you'll never need them but maybe you will, so it's best to have them handy.

Radio. Use your radio not for rock 'n' roll but to get daily weather reports. For the inshore waters you'll be cruising, a transistor radio is good enough.

Flashlights. One flashlight for each of you won't be too many. Buy bulbs and batteries as you need them. They can corrode too easily in salt air while not in use.

Line. You'll need plenty of sturdy line—a couple of shanks of strong clothesline will do—for everything from hanging out the camp wash to lashing down if a storm kicks up.

Air Mattresses. Air mattresses are just about the most com­fortable and easiest to handle and to store of any mattress ever invented. Don't get full-length ones; knee-length is enough. The calves of your legs don't need a mattress to sleep on, you'll be less apt to bounce in your sleep and they take up less space when rolled up and stowed in the boat.

Water Bags. Stay away from glass and breakable things wherever you can, and this is one place where you can. Get a couple of water bags made of canvas—the kind used in desert country. You can refill them everytime you refill your motors with gas, so you don't need more than two bags. Moisten them and hang them in a breeze in camp and the water will keep cool, hang them outside the boat in the breeze while moving and the water will keep cold.

Tarpaulin. You can buy a tarp in just about any size. One about five feet square would be just about right to serve as your tent floor. Another, about four by eight, can wrap around corner poles made out of tree limbs or what-have-you and serve as latrine walls.

Table. A folding camp or picnic table will practically have you thinking you're dining at home. It also gives Mother worktop space for cooking and preparing. A card table is as out of place on a camping trip as a fan dancer on a ballfield. If you like to work and eat Japanese style, a strip of plywood —about two feet wide and three feet long—makes an ex­cellent table. Four rocks or four mounds of beach sand are the legs and you don't, naturally, have to lug the legs around with you.

Paper Bags. You'll need a good supply of heavy, large-size bags for garbage and rubbish. In camp you'll dig a garbage pit and cover over the refuse as you dispose of it. Flatten cans first to conserve space. You'll have more rubbish than you expect aboard the boat—children's scratch paper, for example. Don't throw anything loose over the sides where it can foul up somebody's propeller or drift ashore and make the beaches the last place in the world where you or anyone else would want to camp. Put the rubbish in a paper bag and save it until you can bury it or toss it into a garbage can at a fueling dock.

Trenching Tool. Use the trenching tool to dig a runoff trough around the tent for when it rains. Also to bury garbage and rubbish and for latrine duty.

The other things on the must-have list—like first aid kits, tent repair kits and insect repellents—explain themselves by their names. And, if the whole list reads like something you've run into before, that's because you've gone camping before— although not by boat—or Andy is a Boy Scout and Peg is a Girl Scout. Camping equipment is the same.

The only difference is in how you travel and, since you'll be traveling by boat, in how you stow your gear. The trim of your boat—meaning how it rides in the water and, there­fore, its seaworthiness—is determined by how you load cargo and crew. If you've bought a boat made by an accredited manufacturer, an OBC plate or tag will tell you exactly what the load capacity is, and that even includes the weight of your motor fuel (figure a pint to the pound).

If there is no OBC tag to tell you the safe load capacity of your boat, it's imperative that you find out and then stay well within the OBC limits. An overloaded boat is an easily swamped boat and we can never overstress the importance of safety precautions on the water.

An easy way to pack camping gear for boat stowage is in small canvas duffel bags, keeping like things together—just as you've been doing all your life with your traveling toilet kit, and your wife has done all her life with her traveling manicur­ing kit. You'll never find a can of corn in her sewing basket at home and a can of corn would be just as out of place packed with a tent repair kit.

Package dishes with dishes, food staples with food staples, canned foods with canned foods and put each in a separate duffel bag. Label each bag, make sure everything goes back into the bag it came out of, and you've lessened your camping chores by perhaps fifty percent.

Small packages make cargo stowing easier, too. Put light things, and things that you want to keep as dry as possible, in the space below the foredeck. Things like bedrolls, tent, clothing—each of you ought to have your own clothing bag, too—and air mattresses, for example. Counter-balance the trim by putting several duffel bags against the transom.

Your heavy things go in the center of the boat—we'll sug­gest how in a moment—and you line the sides with whatever light bags you have left over. Be sure to keep everything well below the gunwales. A landlubber would call a gunwale a top of a wall. But we're salty.

Andy's carpentry skill—remember how nicely he made that killie boat?—-comes into use again for stowing the heavy things because hell get a kick out of building a sea chest. You don't have to tell him it's really going to be a grub box. Call it a sea chest, and even a pirate's chest if you like.

It will be a box with a hinged top and a couple of pieces of stout line secured to each end as handles. You'll carry it backed up to what would be the front seat if you were driving a car. The width of your boat and the length of your cockpit will help determine its dimensions. But for easy handling it should be no more than about fourteen inches wide, three feet long and—for safe sailing—a couple of inches lower than your gunwales.

Nail a couple of pieces of fining underneath, along the side edges, to keep the bottom above any water there may be in the boat. Have Andy make it of a light but strong wood.

Into it goes a variety of small duffel bags containing your cooking utensils, your dishes, your coffee pot and iron skillet, your staples, your canned goods, your tent repair kit, your flashlights and, the last thing before you close the cover, your first aid kit. Now you're set to carry things ashore only as you need them or, if you're going to stay at one campsite for several days, you can tote the whole chest ashore.

Aboard the boat, stow the folding camp table or plywood table top between seat and chest and use the chest as a bench or table for children's games. In camp it can be a bench or a worktop or even a table.

That's the way to stow your cargo. Everything neat, trim and shipshape. A proper place for everything, everything in its proper place. Everything easy to get at and carry, nothing loose to knock about and roll about.

Speaking of rolling about, make sure that you don't roll about and maybe get knocked overboard right at your home dock as you load up to go on your camping trip. Or even on a three-hour fishing trip, for that matter.

Don't ever have anything in your hands while getting in or out of a boat tied up to a dock, particularly in swift or deep water. The least wave can start the boat rolling and knock you off your feet because you'll be all out of balance. Always step into a dockside boat empty-handed and have someone hand cargo to you, even if it's only a fishing rod.

Just reverse the technique when unloading, unless you are at campsite and there is no dock. Then you nose into shore and discharge cargo over the bow, human-chain style. You stand in the cockpit and pass gear across the windshield to Andy standing on the foredeck who passes it to Peg on the beach who passes it to Mother who puts it where she wants it.

Andy and Peg will find plenty of things to do in and around camp to keep them happy and busy. But while you're on your way to camp—oh, brother! Unless, of course, you plan before you leave home to do something about keeping them occupied while cruising those long hours.

Just as you had Andy build a sea chest and not a grub box, so you can have Peg keep not a daily diary but a ship's log of your voyage. Have her record the landmarks—on inland waters you'll never be out of sight of land—a gnarled tree, a red rock, a tall stand of bullrushes, whatever she sees that strikes her fancy. And Andy can be her lookout. They can chart the course as you travel it, locate the merging channels, pinpoint marshland islands, underscore shallow waters and other spots to be avoided—and they may surprise you with a product that you'll navigate by next year and the year after next.

But you're not going to keep Andy and Peg free from bore­dom on a one- or two-week boat camping trip merely by having them draw and keep a log. You'll need a lot more than that, so you'd better take along three more duffel bags. Two of them will be empty—one for each child to keep shells and other souvenirs of your nautical vacation—but the third will be filled with all the other things you can take along to inter­est the kids. Not only interesting, but educational, too, and helpful in school when summertime is over and those bells ring again. And the Boy Scout and Girl Scout badge work they can do! Or do they belong to a science or astronomy or photography club? Whatever it is, the boat trip will add to its meaning.

There are the simple everyday things to go in that third duffel bag, things like books and pencils and crayons and lots of note paper and scratch paper and drawing paper. You and Mother will have to start using the knowledge you learned in PTA, from talking to teachers and perhaps as Boy Scout and Girl Scout leaders.

You'll find yourself loading several unusual decks of cards in the kids' keep-busy bag. There will be cards that make games out of identifying birds, plants, shells, insects, fish and rocks and just about anything you can mention. Don't be surprised if they spot and recognize poison oak, ivy or sumac before you do while selecting a campsite. If they do, just clear it away with your ax, using it like a rake. Wear gloves and be sure to clean the ax after you've used it.

Then there are flash cards that make it fun to learn and to brush up on multiplication, addition, subtraction, division and maybe even calculus. One side of the card poses the problem, the other side gives the answer and the child who is asked the question doesn't get to see the answer until he's tried to an­swer it on his own. And how do you spell "cat" or "antidis-establishmentarianism"? There are flash cards that make a game of spelling, too. There's nothing to prevent Andy and Peg from making flash cards of their own on any subject under the sun. In fact, they might even like them better than the ones you can buy.

Now take a look at those scout handbooks. There's a wealth of projects there, from knot tying to nature study to learning to blink out Morse code on a flashlight. And the library is loaded with material on things to do, too.

You'll find the youngsters doing more than just passing the time away and gaining a bit of education while they're about it. Suddenly the whole camping cruise will become a project to plan, organize, complete and take home to be shown to their scout troop or school class.

They'll want imprints of bird tracks in the sand, the outlines of strange and shapely leaves and even molds of some of the fish they catch. That means you must take a sack of plaster of paris along. But don't use it in the boat, because it can make too much of a mess. In camp, however, it will give Peg and Andy no end of fun. They can get the imprints of bird tracks by pouring wet plaster of paris over them. A fish model can be made by pressing the fish into coarse, damp sand, then removing the fish and filling the imprint with wet plaster of paris. A piece of wire bent into a hook for hanging can be inserted before pouring the final layer of plaster and colored stones can be pressed in for eyes.

If you have a cardboard box lid that isn't needed, the kids —or Mother, if she has a suppressed artistic urge—can fill it with runny plaster, then create scenes or designs by pressing leaves, twigs, shells and rocks into it. You might even come home with some plaques you'll want to hang on the wall.

When the plaster of paris is gone the children can place leaves—vein side up—on a hard surface, put a sheet of paper over each leaf and rub a crayon gently back and forth over it. A picture of the leaf, veins clearly outlined, will appear as if by magic.

Insects, leaves and the bark of trees will reveal fascinating secrets when viewed through magnifying glasses. Peg may want to try her hand at creating primitive mats by braiding or weaving the grasses she finds around the campsite.

When night-time comes, Peg and Andy will probably be so sleepy they won't be able to keep their eyes open. But if there's still some unused boy and girl energy to be dissipated before you and Mother can sit quietly, just looking at the pictures in the flames of the campfire, some good old-fashioned family activities might be revived. Story telling, a family sing—does anyone play the harmonica?—or an im­promptu play by the light of a campfire.

Then that chart of the heavens at night you dug out of a musty corner of your bookshelves can provide a wonderful way of falling asleep—looking up at the heavens, picking out and identifying the beautiful pictures made by the stars!

Anchoring At the Campsite

With Peg and Andy happily occupied, all you and Mother need do now is lean back and enjoy the ride and the view as you cruise along to your campsite. Maybe you have a destina­tion in mind, maybe you have to scout out a choice spot for outdoor living as you move along. You'll find the scenery is like nothing you ever saw before from an auto and you'll be able to pick out locations that you didn't dream existed this side of Never-Never-Land.

The only thing that might mar the view would be the signs of a coming storm. You must keep on a constant lookout for them. Keep your eyes open for dark, threatening clouds, an increase in the force of the wind or the size of the waves or distant lightning that might signal an approaching thunder­storm. When the weather threatens get ashore fast, batten down the boat, pitch your tent and sing out the storm to the tune of rain on the roof. Make sure you're nowhere near any trees taller than their neighbors or standing all alone and don't make camp in the path of runoff water. Take the proper precautions and you'll discover that life in a storm can be wonderful.

In seeking out a campsite don't let the clock run beyond three o'clock. That will give you plenty of daylight to run ashore, make camp and go fishing, swimming or exploring before chow. Then sit back and delight hi the sunset over the water, revel in the twilight and then a campfire and some tall stories about the fish that didn't get away. That's living.

When you've found your spot head your boat into the beach, secure your anchor line to a stern cleat and ease the anchor into the water, leaving plenty of slack, while still a fair distance off shore. Then put your bow on the beach, secure a long bowline to a tree or rock and unload.

When all's ashore that's going ashore, move your boat back nearly over the anchor, easing up on the bowline to get you there and taking up the slack in your anchor line. Then swim or wade ashore. With the boat thus bridled at a right angle to the beach it will ride out any sudden storm and it won't be left high and dry by an outgoing tide.

Don't pitch camp near the water. Leave that stretch to the mosquitoes and sand fleas. Pick high ground, well above the high-water mark and—as we said before—out of reach of runoff water and tall trees. Then the only thing to watch out for is that the fish don't bite back!

One final suggestion: Before you take the family camping for the first time, try a dry run in your backyard. That's the best place in the world for learning how to pitch camp and strike camp, how to build a campfire and put it out again. Practice until the four of you have the techniques down pat. While you're at it, try sleeping out of doors for a night or two.

And, if you really want to do it right, you'll park Andy and Peg with relatives for a weekend and just you and Mother will go off on an overnight boat camping expedition by way of making sure that you'll have everything down pat for that week or two-week family camping trip. Besides, it's always good for parents to get completely away from their upstarts once in awhile—and there's nothing nicer than just a him and a her on a deserted, moon bathed beach.

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