gay sailing expedition. who me?

Expedition (noun) "A journey undertaken by a group of people for a particular purpose... ".

I woke (isn't that a fraught word now) this Sunday morning thinking about doing exciting things like adventure (though I think more like expedition). (Two lots of parentheses in a single sentence might get the Parentheses Police upset but screw them.) 

Well, for me unfortunately this thinking has been transformed by the water torture of advertising on my brain, to equate to a thing. A tent, a boat, a pocket knife. I have it all arse up, i think gear first and then plan an adventure to try it out. Sadly, my Spirit of Adventire lasts as long as the gloss on the new thing. 

This morning I began Gumtree &/Youtube scrolling for small " adventure " sailboats such as the "Hobie Adventure Island ". Immediately I  hit by the pizzazz, the gaudy colours & shiny carbon fibre like fittings. Fit young sailors wearing kevlar suits flash their pearly whites in the blue glow of the gaiest (ie: bright, happy), mainsail seen by mankind. All the while, after the glow of looking so young and independently happy fades, i weigh up whether I could afford the outfit let alone the upkeep on a series of little rotomoulded plastic hulls bolted together with one off cast aluminium fittings, propelled by a weird flappy contraption that's doomed to failure. 

No, I think "adventure", from what I see in the media at least, is a high cost pose done on sunny weekends by time poor yuppies. Sorry, but there you go. We all get sucked into consumerist ideals, myself included. 

When I want some outdoors time, I first need to focus on where I want to play and then scrounge up from my generous source of floaty things that will get me started. My superpower is succeeding byakong do when under pressure. You know, when I'm on the side of the road, trail or lake with a broken bit of gear, i can always bodge together a way back home. 

I prefer to think of these activities as expeditions. I think of my everyday life as an adventure; I go out the door and do shit and i am never certain how any day will unfold. I just wing it. 

But if I'm at the trailjead, launch ramp or start of a long road loaded with food and equipment and intending to go far, I like to think of that as an expedition. And I've not been having enough of these on my life lately. That's what I was craving earlier today, before I got waylaid by gay sails and gayer sailors, playing in the sun. 

how gay is this?

I have a grungy clinker dinghy at the bottom of my garden. Yes she needs a scrub and a new trailer wheel and even some fitting out with seats and storage, but the potential is definitely there. And way cheaper than the floaty things with gay sails.