A SATURDAY ON THE BOAT:
The plan: water sports, relaxing, and reading in the sun.
You start out the morning sitting in the sun on your boat, the warm heat relaxing your tense muscles after a work week that was especially stressful and demanding. After a while, with the sun starting its rise in the sky, you and your family depart from the dock in search of the perfect place to have some well-deserved fun. You will escape from your reserved work-self and transform for a day into your true self - the person not pressured by responsibilities and obligations but the person who enjoys life. You are here with your family - the people whom you love and who love you in return. THIS is why you work so hard during the week - THIS makes it all worth it.
You arrive. The sun is really starting to heat up the air making it feel thicker but also like a deep massage at the same time. This is the life! You put on your suntan lotion and enjoy the silky feel of the moisturizer and the distinct scent of coconut on your skin. You make a mental note to reapply soon to your skin and to your family's skin soon and frequently while you're all in the sun.
Lunch time! You reach into the storage unit under your vinyl captain's chair seat cushion and pull out your weaved picnic basket and classic red and white checkered tablecloth. Then you reach under the passenger vinyl seat cushions and pull out the table components and construct the table. With your family, you enjoy a lunch of sandwiches, chips, fruit, and pop. The sun is so hot it's already starting to heat up your nice, cool lunch. You can see everyone start to sweat and get uncomfortable. You have a solution! From the storage units at the back of your boat, you pull out a canvas bimini top you just purchased made by Northstar Products. You easily erect the bimini top as shown to you by your local boat dealer and voila! Shade!
You finish enjoying your lunch, appreciating the coolness of the shade and the brief reprieve from the beating noon sun. You inhale and smell the mixing scents of the sea and the new canvas. Since the day is yours, you decide to relax and read for a while to let your food digest before jumping in the water. You move to the back of the boat out of the shade of the bimini top and into the direct sun. After a short time, the heat of the sun starts to make you sweat. Time to jump in and have some fun! Water skiing, tubing, wake-boarding, and swimming. You're laying on a floating air mattress with the cool water lapping at your sides while the sun again relaxes your muscles. But in the back of your mind, you know that water attracts the sun and this is how skin gets burned - lotion or no lotion. So you swim back to the ladder and re-board your boat, heading straight for the shade of the bimini top. The warm air feels cooler on your wet skin under the shade. You dig into the storage units under the vinyl seats again and pull out a few board games. Nostalgia sets in and you play Yahtzee, Boggle, and Monopoly with your family under the shade of the bimini top to wind down your day. Your thoughts start to drift towards your planned dinner of grilled hamburgers when you get home. This was a perfect day. And you can't help but think of how different it might have been if you had never bought the bimini top to provide the shade you so needed when you needed it. You and your whole family could be going home miserable with burned, red, sore skin instead of going home relaxed and prepared for another week having had a perfect day with the people you love that justifies all of the hard work and pressure of the rest of the working week.
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