The Dock

I've written several times about the lake in Canada where I used to summer in my youth. For some reason I've been thinking about the dock where we tied up the boat when we were finished being on the water for the day.

Every dock is different, but this one was in rather shallow water. They built it by placing several logs in the water on the sandy bottom and spanning planks across them and then running planks length-wise. The water was just deep enough to pull up to the dock. You couldn't have the motor down or it would drag on the bottom.

Once up to the dock there was no tie down hard ware on the dock. There were well worn two inch holes in various places in the planks where you could tie a rope through the hole to the gunnel to secure the boat.

This dock could host four boats. Any other boats that came around would have to be beached.

This dock was were we launched every morning and returned for meals. We would jump off this dock when we swam. We would clean fish on this dock and drop the guts right off the dock and watch the cray fish scramble and tuck into a good meal. Some times I would lie on the dock and watch the minnows swimming from under the dock out into the open. I'd watch the cray fish. I'd look into the shimmering of the pyrite in the sand and wondered if any of it was actually gold. There was so much to look at beneath the surface of the water I could spend hours there and come away feeling content.

I think I need to find a dock somewhere in clear water and I'll spend some time there and reconnect with my youth.