Guests from different cultures graced the boat on a day of light breezes for an international sail. Few people braved the hot temperatures outdoors, but it was cooler on the York River.
Angel Eller was in town from Fredericksburg with her son as he attended Robotics Camp at the College of William & Mary.
“It’s part of iD Tech, which holds computer camps at colleges. It’s very ingenious. He’s into computers and was one of only eight students to make the Junior Team that was eligible for the camp. He’d like for us to buy him a drone, though by now at camp he can probably build one himself. We live within the five-mile zone surrounding our puddle jumper airport, so we’re not allowed to fly drones because they interfere with plane traffic.
“He’s not a geek, but he’s not a jock either. He can sit at his computer for hours, but then he gets up and goes outside. He’s big into bike riding and can ride and ride and ride. I rather like that about him. He’s freer than most kids. He and his friend asked my husband if they could start a fire outside. He said sure, which surprised the friend. And they started it from scratch, without a match.”
Angel is from a farm family and grew up on the water. So she had no trouble grabbing the wheel to run the sailboat.
“Where we grew up in southern Maryland, my dad ran a charter boat on the side while working in Public Works for Charles County. He would run people out to Swan Island four times a day, where they would go fishing. I was his bait girl for the boat. It was a great job for him since there were eight of us to feed.
“My husband doesn’t like the water. He had an incident as a little boy of about five or six when he father ran a jon boat across a sandbar. It threw him out of the boat and he hasn’t been the same since. He’s ventured out a little in a kayak, and we took a trip on a cruise ship. We went up to the top deck, and he could feel it leaning when I couldn’t.”
From Thailand
Two foreign exchange students working at a Williamsburg hotel took the afternoon off to go sailing and take glamour shots on the boat. Jidtawee Aektanasopaphan and her friend Chittada Wacharapark are studying hotel management at a college in Bangkok .
They spoke very good English but agreed that Americans speak too fast and use too many idioms to be easily understood for foreign nationals. “Sometimes I have to ask people to please slow down,” Jidtawee said.
While our cultures are different, everyone agreed that men are the same everywhere. Jidtawee said American men are more respectful than Thai men. The girls became animated at the mention of the latest Pokeman Go game, which has everyone talking. Angel explained to me that Pokeman is nothing more than a glorified Nintendo game with hundreds of permutations. It’s a small world.
Let’s Go Sail
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