I met Poky for our departure at Thunder Bay Point. I warned him that although he'd been on shorter boat rides around the isles, this trip would be a trying one. However, he brimmed with so much excitement about the prospect of his "first real voyage" that I could almost forgive him for signing us up for this unnecessary headache. But my patience soon ran thin when he spent the entire first part of the trip singing old lowlander sea shanties. Around his fifth verse of "Tap the Cask and Down the Hatch!" I threatened to toss him overboard—but that's when the winds began to pick up. I managed to keep us on course, but the increasingly choppy waves made this no easy task. Poised Arrow aided me as best he could but grew unsettled by the strength of the storm. To his credit, he held his own longer than expected, then he retired to the side of the boat where he spent the rest of the trip heaving. ***