Camille’s first words to me this morning were “Happy Earth Day!,” as she burst into our room at precisely 7 a.m. That girl loves a holiday. And what better way to celebrate than by getting into nature via the intracoastal waterway?

Ok, so we’d already planned to take out a boat today, and not just because it was Earth Day, but the timing worked out well.

For this outing, we took a boat with a cuddy cabin, and I had not anticipated how much Camille would love the little “room,” which we dubbed her playhouse. She split her time between pretending to go to sleep…

And being a self-described “observer,” peeking out of the hatch and looking for birds and such.

She was delighted to see pelicans diving into the water, and we were all pretty ecstatic to spot a pod of dolphins making their way toward the Savannah River.

I was proud of us. We set our sights on Riverstreet, even though that meant entering the main shipping channel which made us nervous. Thankfully, no large freighters were moving through at the time, and we pretty much had the water to ourselves. We docked at the public dock there on Riverstreet and ate at Tubby’s (on the porch so we could watch the boat).

On the way back we managed to get lost. It’s not a good feeling to look around and not see any familiar landmarks, but GPS soon saved the day. And I figure we’re making improvements. On our first outing, we got stuck in the mud and lost. On this, our second outing, we just got lost. Maybe on our next outing we’ll avoid both!

I don’t know what it is about being on the water that is so simultaneously exciting and calming, but it just feels so good to be on the boat. This particular boat had a perfect spot at the bow, just big enough for me to sit down and put up my feet and enjoy the view. And enjoy it I did.