06/29/2025
An Absolutely Perfect Day (with a dramatic twist)
Swimming, fishing and dinner tour, family of five.
What a day we had! We set sail at 2:00 PM from Apple Island Marina, just as the mercury hit a blistering 100°—a record high! A steady 10mph breeze whispered across the lake, which gracefully faded to a near dead calm by sunset. Pretty much perfect.
Even better, I got to share it with a picture-perfect family of five—including three spectacularly cool kids, ages 11 to 15, who quickly turned this from a tour into a team adventure. Noah was at the helm before I could say “starboard,” and his sister Sammy, a natural first mate, took the reins like she’d been born on deck.
We toured among the islands, fished for perch with optimism and mild competitiveness (Noah won!), and cooled off with a swim in my favorite secret cove—shared, of course, with Champ, Lake Champlain’s most mysterious (and photogenic) resident. The water was crystal clear. John, the dad, looked around in awe and declared, “This is like the Bahamas.” I had to gently correct him—“no, this is better than the Bahamas.”
We glided through the Gut, out onto the broad lake, and eventually dropped anchor at Bravo Zulu for a well-earned dinner. On the way home, we trolled for salmon as the sun set below the horizon in a blaze of color.
And that was almost the end…
As Meg (the mom) was debarking the boat, she turned to me and said what a perfect day it had been—and then… KER-PLUNK! Yup, her cell phone slipped right into the water.
Time stood still. Conversations halted. The stars themselves seemed to gasp — along with me! We had gone a wee bit over our four-hour tour, and now it was 9:30 p.m. The docks were quiet, empty, and dark. Many would have declared the day’s perfection officially sunk, I sure did. But not this crew.
Without a word, John—husband, father, hero—kicked off his shoes and dove in like he was Aquaman. For a long moment, we all stared into the pitch-black water. Then, a miracle: John in chest-deep water, feeling around for five suspenseful minutes—and lo and behold, he found the phone! And, by some sprinkle of magic, it still worked!!!
But of course it did. This is the Champlain Islands MAGICAL Boat Tours, after all.
What a day indeed.
Captain Scotty
