Family Boat Day!

   The family bought a boat, not even a week ago. My dad has a new hobby: rafting. It's involved a lot of trial and error. He did some research about licensing, education and getting a deal under market value. We had our first sail last weekend.

   The closest place to available for sailing was the Saemangeum dike. But as much as they spent to make it into the longest dike in the world, that heavily industrial area doesn't easily let random boats into the ocean.
   That wasn't our destination anyways. We were headed for the beach in Buan. I believe Brianne did another post about a beach in Buan as well. The one we went to was Gosapo Beach.
   Our boat is an inflatable raft. It's small enough to fit in inside of our van, and came with an electronic pump, which inflates the boat in a minute. The boat is light enough for a couple of to carry it, or one of us to drag it with a set of wheels. Also, it's hardy enough to support a light engine on the back.
   It was still pretty complicated getting to the beach. But somehow it was all enjoyable. Everyone knew it would be worth it.
   How true that turned out to be, when the ocean lifted our boat and carried us, with our three caged dogs, out to sea.
   After a challenging but fun setup the three of us floated off, over-prepared with baggage to compensate for unknown factors. We set our destination to an island and began rowing onward.

   During the ride we ended up testing how our engine could handle the shallow water when it actually touched the bottom, which we weren't expecting at all because we'd only been out for a couple of minutes at that point. Fortunately the engine was built with a shield that pushes itself away when it hits the ground.
   I had to get off of the boat to push it back into the deeper water. Then I noticed that though we were a couple dozen yards away from the beach, the water wasn't even knee-high. It's a good reminder of how shallow the west coast of Korea can be.
   We uncaged our dogs about halfway on our ten minute trip. We were worried about them jumping off into the water. Instead they mangled up together in awkward positions in the little space they had on the boat and just shivered. They're not very water-friendly. We warmed them up in our vests to help comfort them.

   The water looked much more transparent and emerald in color when we got close to the island. We also noticed it wasn't completely uninhabited. There was a small concrete road up to a house on the top of the hill. A couple of bigger dogs came out greeting us when we landed on the shore.
   One of the dogs was scared when our smaller dogs charged at it. One dog remained and we fed him, deciding to keep him company for a while.

   Dogs ran around all over the nearby beach, still staying away from the water. My dad paddled the boat for a few more rounds, testing its balance. I got to row it as well.
   My dad made it sound so difficult. But it wasn't very hard for me, this being the first time manning a boat. That said, maybe having years of simulated practice comes in handy with one of these things.
   I also found a lot of dead jellyfish all over the shore. They just looked like blobs of water laying around, or shiny mushrooms.
   Boats aren't allowed to stay out on the water 30 minutes after sundown. And evening was approaching. So we enjoyed our rest, packed our stuff up, said goodbye to the dog that greeted us and sailed back to the mainland.
   I was both soothed and excited with all the fun memories we brought back with us. The ride back was also much more comfortable than the ride there. The dogs were living inside our vests at that point.

   A fun thing happened once we reached the mainland.
   I fell.
   I didn't mind. The water was shallow and I'd planned on dunking myself in at some point, so I was prepared. But did I mention we'd kept our dogs in our vests? Well, I completely forgot that I had my dog in there.
   I quickly emerged from the water, but I felt something missing from my vest. My tiny dog was struggling not to fall out of my vest while half of his body was already hanging out underneath it. He was already turned into a wet dripping natural floor mop. And me pulling him out underneath the vest apparently looked like I just sprung out of the water and was having the sudden birth of a dog. Quite a laughing gas with that one.

   It was quite exhausting carrying that boat through the beach to the car. But for a first try, it went really well. And the fun we had made all the troubles we had to go through worth it.

Young-Gun Park

Young-Gun Park has been studying various forms of visual arts for more than a decade and has been involved in various community arts projects. He has been a writer and photographer for GPTWT for more than a year. His future portfolio projects include work in cinematography and graphic novels. Read more.