by Jayne Louise
from Jayne’s Nature:
Out of the blue .
by Jayne Louise.
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A Kindle™ e-text.
Surf City Source
New Jersey
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Out of the blue
Text © 2005 by Girls Of the Dove LLC.
All rights reserved.
No part of the manuscript or artwork included in this e-text
may be reproduced, stored or transmitted by any means
without express written permission from the Publisher.
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Text edited by Melissa Stockhart.
HTML edited by The Girls of The Dove.
From the original America Online journal of July 2005
Surf City Source media group
New Jersey
www.surfcitysource.com
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Foreword
The following adventure is actually true. My journal from which these stories come does name real places and real people, but for this edition I have left out many details that might embarrass someone, or give too much of my private life away, or reveal the exact location of places that are better kept secret. The stories aren’t for people to come looking for me and stalk me. They’re for letting people know that things like this really can and do occur and that nothing here is really anything terrible at all. My sisters and I are proper young ladies who wouldn’t hurt a soul nor do anything unsafe or sinful, and as long as we are healthy and respected you’sll never see us become petulant or insist on our own way. So I need to say that if you’sre looking for some really hot sexy stories about nice girls going bad, this is not the book you’ll want to read. For everyone else, if you stick with it I think you’ll enjoy it.
A word of caution: there are many dangers for any person, clothed or unclothed, prowling about the Pine Barrens, some of which can be much worse than a mild scratch or a case of poison ivy. Also, technically, some of the activities we have pursued in these adventures are against the rules. To allay any formal concerns, we rely on our intentions to not disturb anyone else and on our conscious efforts to defend the pristine natural environment as citizen caretakers. Therefore we, as The Girls of the Dove, do not endorse anything we have done here, do not advise others to follow our examples or surpass such activities on their own, and do not accept responsibility for anyone who does anything following our examples. This advisory is made for legal as well as for ethical reasons. And anyway we’re sure you can find your own unique way of having fun without copying what other people have done.
Jayne Louise
New Jersey, September 2006
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The Girls of The Dove,
in
Out of the blue.
by Jayne Louise.
The plan
After playing the gig at the yacht club for the Fourth of July, the three of us walked home. Angel offered us a ride, and Keith did too, but we wanted to walk. We were still in the stuff from playing, basically short cotton or denim skirts and tanktops or a tee with a shirt over it. This, or this but with capris or cotton crop pants, is pretty much what we will wear on stage for the season.
On the way we met some guys– three of them, actually– who wanted us to go to a party with them. ‘No thanks,’ we said, and went on walking, so naturally they followed us. Two of them were brothers about Jem’s and Jule’s ages and the other one was a friend of theirs a little younger than me. They said they were staying over at 19th– not far from our house.
I didn’t want too much to do with them and kind of got mad that those two were sort of encouraging them till one of them said, ‘So, do you girls ever get high?’ And that was all we needed to hear, you know.
The big reason I wanted to get rid of these guys was that we had been discussing plans for making another trip up the River, or wherever else we could go, before the concert series starts this weekend. So at the end of 19th I just stopped walking and waited till these half-stoned guys got the message. When guys are high like that it usually takes longer for them to figure anything out. Finally one of them said he had to go to the bathroom. The others took the opportunity to invite us back to their place, since their parents were not home, and we said no, that we had to be in by now anyway. They thought us having a curfew was cute, but we were not going anywhere with them and after like 15 minutes they did figure that out and we were able to walk home without them following us. I did look over my shoulder a few times.
I don’t think they ever had any idea we were musicians just coming home from playing three sets at a party.
So we made plans to leave very early in the morning and make it to the river by afternoon.
We were all thrilled to have found that the spot where we held the Kupala Night festival was so private and secure even in daylight that we’d be able to get some very leisurely sunning in there before supper time. Then we’d stay on the boat at anchor and make up our minds what to do the next morning.
Our parents were a little concerned, not about us going there again, not even with us taking the boat, because they are never much worried about that now. Daddy reminded us we still had to practice for Saturday. We promised we’d be back for Thursday evening and run through everything with Angel and the guys, and I would bring a guitar on the trip so we three could practice harmonies. That seemed to satisfy him. The weather outlook was clear with a very slight chance of very slight showers so we got everything packed by the time we turned in and set our alarms for 6:00.
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Tuesday, July 5, 2005
It was earlier than Daddy wanted to leave so I drove us all down to the club and we got the boat under way by 7:00. Jules immediately went below and took a nap. Jem lay in the cockpit in her tanktop and shorts for a while. By 9:00 it was already pretty hot. Then came the usual cruising ennui, having nothing to do while making only 5 knots over a long way to go. Jem took off the shorts and top and lay there naked for half the morning. Once or twice I even got her to steer the boat for a while. Jules came up, served us all a breakfast of doughnuts and sliced oranges, and steered for a while after Jem went up on the foredeck with a towel. I got out of everything and lay on the cockpit seat in my panties for bout an hour. I might even have dozed off. It was very restful.
Once some guys on a ski boat came by really close. I wouldn’t sit up– that was all the sight they would need! –but, according to Jules, Jem just propped herself up on her elbows and waved. Fortunately there were girls in the ski boat. They would keep the guys from coming back and harassing us, but they did cheer and wave at us. I wondered if their relationships with the guys would let them do as we were doing. Probably not.
In the lower Bay, the channel gets much wider and we can sail very close to the mainland side and not encounter a lot of boat traffic. It went calm, though, very calm, and I started the motor to make better time. Off the end of Great Bay Boulevard, the ocean comes straight through the inlet and all the way across to there, so there can be actual waves– though not very big ones. Some little kids were wading. Their parents saw us and waved. By that time Jem had a t-shirt on and was standing up in the hatchway. I was still topless and just lay on my tummy on the seat, propped up on one elbow to look over the edge at them. They weren’t able to tell that Jules had panties on with her cami top– actually the same ones she had slept in! But we are like that on the boat– if it’s not obvious, and so long as we’re comfortable, we don’t make a big deal about it.
Going up the River we got bored, as we often do. Jem made the phone
calls for the bridges and we were all dressed enough to be seen from the roadway. Going under the Lower Bank bridge there were about six cars waiting for us. Some of them waved. One guy yelled down that we were wasting his time, with our stupid little sailboat. This is summer! –how much time could anyone waste on vacation? And at least we felt privileged enough to be on the water instead of some stupid SUV with air-conditioning so that you can’t even appreciate the weather.
Probably a New Yorker!
Above the second bridge we finally put the mainsail down and motorsailed with just the little jib up for the rest of the way. I steered in close past the bathing beach and boat-launch ramp, keeping to the right of the channel, and the people there waved. There was a picnic going on at the tables under the trees, like some school-bus trip or something. I figured we would see them at Batsto later this afternoon.
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Anchoring
There was no one at all on the River when we got to our anchoring spot at the mouth of the little creek. Jem got out of the t-shirt and went over the side to lead the anchor out aft, and then I stepped off the bow to take the bow line over and around the tree. It felt really strange to be still in the pink panties in broad daylight– we hadn’t checked our perimeter and anyone at all could have been in the woods, you know. But in fact there was no one. Jem was back on the boat and I was wading out when a speedboat went by in the channel, 150 yards astern of us. They didn’t see me– I was on the port side of the bow, away from the River. That was good. Even if I’d had a t-shirt on I’m not sure I’d have wanted anyone to see me in wet panties!
I didn’t even get back on the boat then– I just asked for my sneakers. ‘I’m going to walk out the path a little and see who’s here,’ I said. ‘You can get ready but don’t start lying out before we know it’s okay.’
Jules nodded. ‘You’re going like that?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe my t-shirt then.’
I carried this stuff back ashore, rinsed off my feet before getting the sneakers on, and strolled in through the trees and across the familiar clearing that was the site of our ten-girl Ivana Kupala camp-out two weeks ago. It looked as though not a soul had come here since then. I amused myself for a few moments looking for any remnants of that gathering– but we’d been careful, both because we didn’t want to pollute our environment and because we didn’t want to leave any sign that we liked using this spot. The fire pit had been rained on a few times since and was almost not recognizable. In a few places I could see where the grass had been scraped aside for our pup tents. But we’d raked up where we’d turned around and loaded the cars, and almost no traces remained of the tire-tracks after the rains we’ve had. And there were no lost hair rings, no paper towels, no water-bottle caps, and no litter. To me, that made the Kupala Night gathering a real success after all.
I got the t-shirt on over my head as I proceeded farther along the path, leading through the woods towards the road. It was hot and muggy, especially this far into the woods this far upriver, and I peeled the bottom of the clean t-shirt up and finally knotted it around my ribs. That gave me a terrific feeling of freedom, almost as good as if I’d taken off the panties instead. I wasn’t the least bit worried about running into anyone– I was totally confident we’d be alone here all day and night. Kupala the forest-spirit seemed to welcome me as one of her own, no one she needed to fear but one whom she would protect lovingly, as ever.
About halfway between the clearing and the road, I stopped in the center of the path. A car went by on 542; I heard it. Another went by the other way. I listened to their two motors in stereo, one fading away in each ear, till they were nearly gone. Oddly there was no other traffic. I did take a few more steps towards the road but there wasn’t any point. The path was a third of a mile long and scarcely wide enough for a car to come through, with foliage and even tree branches coming too close and too low, and we’d be safe enough at the end of it that we’d hear anyone coming long before they’d become a threat. ‘Good enough,’ I said, and turned to go back.
Almost back to the clearing, I perceived the voices of canoers in the creek, boys and fathers mostly, as it is a common adventure for Boy Scouts in the county. I slowed and stopped to crouch behind a bush a few times, but they would never think to turn their heads and try to make out some solitary chick 50 or 75 yards away inside the trees. My hair was all down and with the dark-olive t-shirt I was pretty camouflaged anyway. So I stood up and strolled comfortably along, parallel to their course as they headed out to the River. I could only assume my sisters were smart enough to take cover.
‘Hello!’ I heard a man call cheerfully. My sisters replied with hellos of their own. Then the guy was asking about the tide, how far it was out, when it would come back on, and all. Jem answered, based on what we knew from coming in, and the guy said ‘Thank you!’ and they went on. By then I was in the clearing and could see them– one, two, three, four canoes each with two or three boys or men in them, all parading past the stern of Dove. Jem called to them to be careful of our anchor line. ‘Thank you!’ the guy called again, and just as I was stepping in between the trees to the boat I saw that they had all come out on the River.
Jules was straddling the bowsprit of our boat, turned around to watch the boys go by. She was still in the thin white camisole top and blue panties she’d slept in, but to the guys in the canoes she’d been half enshrouded by the trees on the bow and they wouldn’t have been able to tell. Jem was standing up in the cockpit, finishing tightening down the awning that they’d put up while I’d been gone. Fortunately she had swimsuit bottoms on then. ‘Hey,’ she said to me, seeing me even before Jules did. ‘How is it?’
I stepped down into the water beside the boat, sneakers and all. ‘It’s fine,’ I said softly. A few steps further and I could see the boys paddling upriver with their fathers and chaperons. They never looked back, which was good. ‘They’ll be back,’ I said, ‘probably right before supper. We need to keep an eye and ear out for them.’
‘How’s the campsite look?’ Jules asked.
I smiled at her. ‘Go see for yourself.’
She giggled a little, and then, gymnast that she is, she swung down on the bow rail and vaulted herself out past the mooring line into the water.
We waded ashore with our beach blankets and towels and a cooler of bottled water and juice and arranged ourselves pretty much where we had been the morning after Ivana Kupala. Each of us left our clothes right on the blankets so we could gather up everything in one armload and hightail it for the boat if we had to. The sun was past straight up and the patch of light was not as big as it had been that morning, but we were able to get two hours of good sun time before we all got bored and hungry. Jem got up first, pacing around a little and wandering off the path to the south, where it led away from the clearing and parallel to the River itself. It doesn’t go anywhere but winds around and comes back in a loop after about 200 yards. She was gone quite a while, but Kupala was good to her too and blessed her with a pleasant little opportunity for communing with nature by herself. After all that’s all we ever want here.
We also did a little swimming, but we were ever mindful of the chance that any more Boy Scouts and their dads could come down the creek from the canoe-launching site at any time, so we didn’t wander too far from the safety of the boat. I guessed that the ones who passed by before had gone over to Sweetwater, even if all they could get there was a Coke from the machine and some shade to drink it in. No Boy-Scout troop would be able to eat in that restaurant!
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Batsto, for real this time
It was late afternoon and we still had not made our annual pilgrimage to the Batsto historic village. So we collected all our stuff and got dressed for the hike, and then secured the boat, passing the cable around the tree for the padlock and locking the canoe’s cable to the side of the boat. None of us had brought a lot of stuff for this trip. Jules changed
into the top of her tankini and put on her little red cotton shorts– it was a very sleek, athletic look for her. Jem put on her denim shorts with a bandanna pulled through the loops for a belt and the t-shirt from the trip down with the tails tied up around her ribs. The little doll has just enough to keep it down and it really shows off her tummy. I was feeling a little adventuresome and got dressed in the gray-white-blue bikini that ties at the hips and the front of the top, and then just put the dark-olive t-shirt back on over it and tied the tails up again like before. I’d probably brought the least clothing on this trip of any of us, just what I had on now, one pair of shorts, and two other t-shirts. And the only shoes I brought were now squishy wet. Jem laughed at the sound I made as we walked, and the shoes got very sandy very quickly. But it was actually very cool on my feet.
We crossed the road, not running as there was no traffic at the moment, and hopped over the fence to the Batsto historic area. I had a purse with me and checked the wristwatch that I keep buckled around the strap. It was about 3:30. We had an hour and a half left. Of course we have been here many times before, but we had hoped for a pleasant afternoon wandering the grounds and visiting the gift shop or whatever. Since we were hungry we headed straight for the snack counter. We’d still have tomorrow to see sights.
