The Harbourfront

[This is a challenge suggested by halalcohol (probably because I've been in a topic rut recently - I just keep rejecting things I can write about, and some of them weren't half bad. Sort of.) Write about our trip on a boat, without using the word BOAT or WATER. Nor derivatives or compounds thereof, such as SAILBOAT, or WATERY. ]

As a Torontonian, I really don't know our downtown area very well. I could find for you places on a map, but that's with a map. Anyone with some sense of direction could find things on a map. If you asked me where a certain district was in correlation to another, I couldn't tell you. There is, however one particular place in downtown Toronto that I am getting a little sick of - the Harbourfront Centre. Seriously, though. We keep going back for field trips. 7 times so far. Not that I was counting.

I was more excited this time, though, because we were going to board the schooner KAJAMA instead of being cooped up inside the Harbourfront centre. On board, we were sorted into three rotary groups for the different educational stations. First, though, we had to raise the sails. It wasn't very hard until the end, when the sail required a lot more effort to raise. It was actually sort of funny to watch, because there were four of us on the same rope, so it looked like there were hands appearing of of nowhere.

The groups took turns steering the vessel - starbord, port - testing a lake sample for the oxygen level (15 ppm approx.), and learning about nautical navigation. I even got to drop a leadline not made of lead overboard! We passed by some interesting sights during the tour (we even waved to some people at police camp) and were baked by the sun.

Back on land, we ate lunch at the Queen's Quay terminal (by the way, "quay" IS pronounced like "key," if you care enough to know or remember) and had some time left over to explore the shops. Well, not really. Most people headed straight to Tim Horton's and the neighbouring ice cream/candy shop. Hey, we're kids. We like our sugar. And, it seems, caffeine, too.

Anyways, time to run this through MS word and have it check if I've met the challenge!

~Yaning

(I haven't written that in a while...)