ddyte and I discovered that being big in a punt has the disadvantage that the whole thing rocks from side to side every time you make the slightest move. Ever seen The Italian Job? Like that. Anyway, we ended up crouched a bit uncomfortably in the middle and I got lots of pictures of ddyte's hairy legs -- I haven't included the rest of these since there might be children or impressionable young ladies reading this, and I wouldn't want to be held responsible for any swooning injuries.
ghira's punting style is fluid and confident. Storme's expression is just alarming.
Supposedly Isaac Newton designed a footbridge which was suppported entirely by its own weight, requiring neither glue nor bolts. This can't be it, though, since there's bolts all over the damned thing. Or maybe they just didn't trust Newton's mathematical skills -- boy, talk about cautious.
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I have no particular comment to make here, I just find these pictures strangely amusing. Also, I noticed afterwards that ddyte takes tall photos by turning the camera to the left, while I turn it to the right; this is why his thumb appears in the first picture. (Or maybe he just felt the need to hide my body from view.)
Just in case you thought we were the only punt on the river, here's a random snap of a not particularly busy stretch.
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These pictures nicely convey the jolly devil-may-care feel of the whole punting experience, and also the lack of precision involved in holding the camera over your head and taking photos randomly.
veek jumped at the chance to punt under the tuition of ghira. At one point she knocked out Storme and me on the backstroke, but fee cleverly played dead and escaped injury.
When we recovered, we found that maga had assumed the pole and was punting us down the river with calm assurance. We only hit the bank two or three times, and had very few scrapes with other boats.
All too soon, the punting had to come to an end. We returned to King's and carefully disembarked. But nobody could have predicted the terrible accident that struck just moments after this picture was taken.