Adventures on the High Seas

On Sunday, my band of comrades and I were attacked by pirates.

They were rather jovial, though. In fact, I had chatted with a few of them earlier that day. I was with student members of the CVJM (Germany's YMCA), which is explicitly Christian, unlike the Y in the US. (Lisi, my friend in Innsbruck, connected me with her friend Claudi, who attends the group.) They had invited me to join them on the Isar River in several inflatable boats.

A few people took a smaller boat, while the two big boats had 7 people each. It's a pretty tame river and the boats are nearly impossible to tip. The scenery was really cool - in only 20 km, it seemed reminiscent of Canada's pines and Spain's Mediterranean scrub brush before switching back to typical German forests. Coupled with the gorgeous weather, it could have been a very mellow day.

But the Pirate Boat wouldn't have it. They started off the day by sneaking up behind us and drenching us by flinging water with their paddles. After a few successes and our best attempts at retaliation, they upped the ante. We were ready for more splashing, but instead they cruised by us and stole paddles out of two of my comrades' hands, leaving us defenseless and slow. A while after regaining our paddles, we managed to grab a few of theirs. They sent over Wolfi (short for Wolfgang) on a Search and Rescue mission. That's when things got interesting.

Wolfi jumped into our boat and played tug-of-war with a few of us for his boat's missing paddles, but we held on tightly. In the process, two of my loyal comrades fell out. "My sunglasses!" yelped Nina. Sure enough, while we recovered a hat, her Armani shades were nowhere in sight. Friedemann, the other victim, began searching in the swirling waste-deep waters of the Isar. Wolfi (filled with remorse?) got out and tried to anchor our boat, but the current was pulling hard. He decided to stay and keep an eye on Friedemann while we floated down a bit and found a spot to pull over on the opposite bank, which had a shore instead of a steep forested hill.

A minute later, Friedemann emerged empty-handed and swam over to us. Where was Wolfi? "I thought he was back in the boat already..." We yelled his name, peered in the shadows of the far bank, and asked everyone on the little boat when they passed by. No sign of him. We grimly recalled the warnings of our faithful leader about hitting one's head and falling unconscious. After a few minutes, we were really concerned.

Finally five minutes later, Wolfi emerged from the forest. Unable to make it back to Friedemann, he had climbed out and walked along the trail along the river. But the thick trees had drowned out our voices.

The next time the Pirate Boat approached us, we braced ourselves. But nothing happened. No jumping, no stealing, no splashing. We tied the boats' ropes together and lazily floated down toward the bridge that marked our final destination. Even pirates like to be mellow every now and then.