Captains of "The Dauntless"

Hello, dear reader. Today I'm going to tell you about punting. For those of you who don't know, a punt is a flat-bottomed boat that is propelled through (shallow) water by a long pole (boating in a punt is called punting; the person propelling the boat is a punter). Since a really awesome river winds its way through Cambridge, it's not surprising that punting is one of the city's major tourist attractions, and one of the best ways for students to relax on a warm day. I'm fortunate enough to go to a wealthy college, so we have our own fleet of punts with awesome names, like Sulphur. But they day my friends and I decided to go punting, we ended up with The Dauntless. Awesome, right?

Experienced punters (like ourselves) know that to have a proper punting trip, one needs a few things: a.) a boatie hat (see photos), b.) nibbles (we brought cheese, bread, and grapes), and c.) drinks (wine and cider were our choices). We were the envy of many other punts that we passed who watched us lounging in the punt, sipping wine and wished they would have thought to bring something to drink. Tsk, tsk. Amateurs. 

We all took turns punting, and once Mark showed me the proper technique, I really got a hang of it. It's easy once you know what to do and if you have a strong arm and a good sense of balance, you can stand up there for ages (not quite as fun, though, as eating cheese and drinking cider inside the punt...). 

But there definitely is a technique to it. Here's what I've gathered: push the pole all the way down until it touches the riverbed and use that to propel the punt forward (at this point your hands should be at the top of the pole), then pull the pole out a bit, but use it to steer the boat and keep it centered on the river. Sounds easy, right? It is after a little bit. But even if you get the hang of it, there are still accidents. Below Mark demonstrates HOW to punt and Sophie demonstrates how NOT to punt.

I punted us all the way from Darwin College (where Mark hopped off to deliver a letter...we're like a floating mail service!) to Mill Pond and then turned us around (a bit tricky, but I managed). It was actually miraculously warm outside when this was going on (you can clearly see I'm not dressed for rain and wind) we got to soak up some sun (or get terrible sunburn, if you're me). 

Really, though, punting is one of the best and most unique ways to see a different part of Cambridge. We got to past by the backs of a lot of colleges, we got to see a lot of the major college bridges that pass over the Cam, we even got to see the newly hatched John's cygnets (they're actually nesting between Magdalene and John's, so I guess they're shared cygnets).

If any of my dear (non-Cambridge) readers come to to visit me, we will definitely have to go punting, now that I'm an expert at it. And by expert I mean I haven't fallen in yet.

PS: I would like to thank Sophie for some of these lovely pictures. I also want to point out that Sophie is a magnificent punter and the above photograph of Sophie vs. Weeping Willow does not do her punting skills justice. :)