Let's go boating!"

How I love to hear those words! It means open sky, shore birds, negotiating the chop on the sea, perhaps a water-borne adventure out to Bald Head Island!

I must confess I'm new at nautical adventures. I've shown my ignorance by running out of gas, falling overboard, even running aground.

Mishaps don't have to happen very often before one begins to learn fast. For instance, I'm learning to read buoys, channel markers, even the color of the water -- all signs of where safe passage lies.

Believe-you-me, the fun goes out of a boating trip quickly when you run aground and have to wait six hours for the tide to change. The mosquitoes and sun are glad for your flesh. But they're the only ones.

So, a boatman can learn the hard way or he can learn to read the buoys others pa…