Just Imagine
Family Time
by Graham Garrison
July 27, 2007
By the time you reached your vacation destination, your shoulder was sore
- and not from the seat belt rubbing against you for six hours or falling asleep with half your
body nudged against the car door - but from a hard-fought game of "Slug Bug" with your siblings.
Games of "Slug Bug," "I Spy," and naming states on license plates were what kept your mind occupied
and your imagination in overdrive on the otherwise monotonous parts of family trips.
Boating beats long car trips any day, but grown-ups often assume that their kids enjoy the
same types of activities on the water that they do. While an afternoon of fishing may be fun for
you, your son may have less of an attention span, and as a result, less patience for reeling in a
slack line time after time. Socializing in a cove or just cruising may be fun for a while, but your
kids may quickly tire of it. And bringing along a video game system or their favorite toys are
often merely temporary fixes for a bored child.
Instead, try to think about boating through your child's eyes. Use their imagination. There's
adventure to be had, discoveries to be made, and ways
to make even point A to point B cruises exciting. The following are some ideas to make a day
of boating more interactive for your family.
Capture The Flag
The goal of playing "Capture the Flag" is as simple as the title: It's the way you
set up the game from start to finish that can make it a fun waterborne activity. The best scenario
is to have a group of about a half dozen or more. Then, find a quiet cove or spot of land where you
can anchor your boat nearby. If you have a group of good swimmers, you can center the game on water
play, allowing the kids to chase each other in the water, maybe tying the flag to a swim ladder. If
your group is smaller in number, make the boat the finish line or safe zone, with the flag close by
on the shore, ensuring a mad splash for the contestants once the flag is retrieved.
Inevitably, the bigger and more athletic kids in your group may have more fun at this game
than the smaller kids. There are ways to even the playing field, however. Try using water toys, for
instance. You can make a "tag" game of Capture the Flag using water guns and balloons. Give the
smaller kids the bigger water toys and more ammo to boot. It'll be one of the few athletic games
where they may find an edge against an older sibling.
Trivia
Say you're making a run offshore or even traveling down a stretch of familiar water to get to
your destination. If it takes longer than half an hour, you may have a collective mix of yawning
faces and bored demeanors. Board games and DVDs may be out of the question, too. Nobody likes to
see checker pieces fly in the air after you've hit some chop. There's a solution that may keep
everyone involved and attentive - trivia. If playing trivia doesn't sound exciting enough, put a
little incentive into it: The winner gets an extra scoop of ice cream, first pick of movies to
watch on board, or other treats on the way home. Trivia time can involve local landmarks if you're
boating along a river or bay where eyeballing the question topics is possible. Do a little research
in advance, and be sure to make your kids aware that they may be quizzed on the topic. You can cut
your engine to idle, read off a question, and then have them come up with an answer before racing
off to the next point. Or, if you're on a long trip and don't want to waste time, rattle off the
question as you pass by, and get their answer later.
If you're offshore on a lake or river with little to see, resort to a bit of family trivia.
Give advance notice that you'll have a trivia game before your trip, and lay down the ground rules
and subject materials. Ask questions such as "What's Mom's favorite ice cream flavor?" or "What's
the capital of our state?" or anything that all contestants have a realistic shot at answering. A
byproduct may be that your kids pay more attention to dinner topics instead of gazing in the
direction of the entertainment center
or the pantry for dessert.
Scavenger Hunt
You can set up a boating scavenger hunt in a number of different ways: If
you're at a dock or marina, you can set up a handful of items in safe places (i.e. not another
person's boat). That includes the storage area on your boat, but getting out on the water will be
more fun.
Use the water as part of the hunt. Bring along diving fins, snorkels and something to fish
with in the water. With the kids either below in the cabin
or with their eyes closed, find a shallow area, and plop some rings to the bottom. If you
find a quiet spot of land, anchor nearby, and have an adult spread out a bag of items to hunt for.
Let the kids take a dive off the swim platform and scamper for the shore. If you have more than one
boat traveling in a group, set up stations with grown-ups at each point, much like the way you've
seen boating poker runs set up.
Ghost Stories
Were some of your best childhood memories being scared out of your wits, listening
to a scary tale as you sat Indian-style by the fire, trying to keep your hands from shaking as you
roasted marshmallows? Your kids would probably enjoy a spooky tale as much as you did. While
camping trips tend to be the focal point of telling a good ghost story, boating can be a perfect
venue for it. Think about it: You're out in the wild, listening to a frightening tale as the tide
swishes back and forth under the hull. You've got the water, and if you're near shore, the woods,
to work your imagination.
Picking the right ghost story depends on how much time you have to put into it. You can
recount your favorite childhood stories by adding the element of water to it. There are bound to be
books on ghost stories at your local bookstore, and if all else fails, rework a favorite movie into
the ghostly narration.
There are certainly age considerations - you don't want to tell your 4-year-old a story that
will keep him or her up all night. If you've got a younger crowd, you might want to bring along a
kid's book of ghost stories. A kid-friendly DVD of spooky stuff may let you off the hook for
delivering a dramatic ending.
The most important part of the story isn't even the story - it's the setting. Keep the
traditional ghost storytelling in play with sleeping bags, marshmallows, graham crackers and
chocolate bars. The aura of the water can make a good story a legend if you play it up just right.
There's a myriad of ways you can take favorite kids' games and mold them into family boating
activities. All you need is a simple idea and a big imagination.