In Venice, there are all these gondoliers who suck
tourists into a romantic trip around Venice.
Honestly, gondolas look like a really inefficient way to get around
water, compared to say, the speedboats that zip around the canals. Well gondolas are practically hovercraft
compared to punts.
So, what is punting?
A punt is basically a broad,
flat-ish boat that you use in a river.
Punts are navigated using a bigass pole, which you push off the
riverbed. Yup. You are pushing the boat along through the
water, as opposed to, say, paddling against the water. One of the more difficult aspects of punting
is that the boat naturally wants to rotate around its center rather than move
forward through the water. It’s actually
quite tricky to move at all instead of just spinning the back of the boat
around – you really need to make sure you are pushing forward and don’t let the
boat twist. Additionally, you have to
stand in the back of the boat, gondola-style, which can be quite unnerving for
the punter whenever the boat rocks. As
this description probably implies, punting is pretty difficult. Punting furiously and getting passed by a
random family paddling a canoe feels pretty pathetic. Even people who are really really good at
punting can only move about as fast as a kayak.
 |
| Yup, this is what it looks like |
Of course, rapid transportation is not really the point
of punting. Punts vary in size, but the
ones I’ve been in fit about 5 people including the punter. While not punting, it’s great to enjoy the
scenery, cruise down the river, lose your wallet, etc. Wait what?
The first time I went punting, everyone did the typical
punt routine, which is to get tipsy in the boat. For some inexplicable reason we did not bring
a bottle opener. I have my keys attached
to my wallet, so I gave the wallet + keys to Camille so she could open her
bottle. For some inexplicable reason,
instead of handing me my wallet, she tossed it to me across the boat. I muffed the throw and my wallet went into
the river.
Unfortunately, the river was about 5 ft. deep and
cloudy. It’s actually really
polluted. Fortunately I didn’t seem to
get any infections or anything, because one person I was mentioning this story
to expressed concern that the river is really not something you want to be
swimming in. And swim around I did, as
Ethan and I tried to find this stupid invisible wallet.
Ethan deserves major props for volunteering to do this,
especially because this was easily the coldest water I have ever been in. The water was shockingly cold, to the point
where even breathing normally required some effort. Ethan was more resilient to the frigid water
than I was (must be that Minnesota upbringing), but he only stayed in a few
minutes at most as well. After I lost
the wallet I didn’t know what to do so I just sat in the boat drinking wine
despondently. As a result, I was the
only person who was really drunk, which probably made me look like an alcoholic
or something since I was obviously intoxicated and everyone else was pretty
sober at 6PM or whenever we got dinner.
Blugh.
I’ve spent several weeks slowly replacing all the stuff I
lost. My second punting trip went much
better, since I didn’t have anything to lose.
I also finally got the hang of moving the boat forward without spinning
it, and did a pretty decent job. Still,
punting seems like the time of activity that survives on tradition and tourism
more than anything else.
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