This file includes Beach, Lake and Pool, Cruises, Water Sports (swimming, surfing, sailing, boating) and Miscellaneous (lighthouses, etc.). Also see Fishing and Summer.

Water Sports

Page Toppers

Swimming Lesson

Swimming is an easy thing,
If you know how to do it.
You push the water wide apart,
And then you just go through it.

Swimming

(Clinton Scollard)

When all the days are hot and long
And robin bird has ceased his song,
I go swimming every day
And have the finest kind of play.

I've learned to dive and I can float
As easily as does a boat;
I splash and plunge and laugh and shout
Till Daddy tells me to come out.

It's much too soon; I'd like to cry
For I can see the ducks go by,
And Daddy Duck - how I love him -
He lets his children swim and swim!

I feel that I would be in luck
If I could only be a duck!

Swimming Page Idea

In the title "Swimming Lessons" replace the first "S" with a right facing sea horse sticker and the last "S" with a left facing sea horse sticker.

Something to think about:
If one synchronized swimmer drowns - do the rest have to drown, too?

Beach, Lake or Pool

Page Toppers

Quotes

• I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began. (William Hazlitt)
• I have seen the sea when it is stormy and wild; when it is quiet and serene; when it is dark and moody. And in all these moods I see myself. (Martin Buxbaum)
• I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. (Hamlin Garland)
• My recollection of a hundred lovely lakes has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. (Hamlin Garland)
• Near the sea we forget to count the days.
• Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills. (Ambrose Bierce)
• There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. (James Russell Lowell)
• The tide rises, the tide falls,
  The twilight darkens, the curlew calls. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
• The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. (Kate Chopin)
• I love the way a river's lullaby sings me to sleep, serenades my dreams, and gently coaxes me awake come dawn. (Stacy Kocur - used on a page titled "Water Music" with photos of rivers)
• What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn't have any doubt - it is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn't want to go anywhere else. (Hal Boyle)
• When I swim in the sea I talk to it. I never feel alone when I'm out there. (Gertrude Ederle - English Channel swimmer)
• Where the ocean meets the sky, I'll be Sailing
• Who hears the rippling of rivers will not utterly despair of anything. (Henry David Thoreau)

The Ageless Battle

(Rea Williams)

Always boiling, brawling, beating,
Against the shore and then retreating.
Like a boxer, tapping, sparring,
Then with lightening quick force, jarring
Against the punch-drunk weary shore --
Waiting, trembling, undefending --
For that bruising shock once more.
With the great strength born of ages,
Wind swept, stormy, merciless rages.
Pitting sea against the land
Pounding, grinding rocks to sand.
Man can only gaze in awe,
Wondering if 'twill be a draw --
This endless battle of sea and shore,
Since time began and forever more.

Sea Fever

(John Masefield 1878-1967)

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky.
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
is a wild call and clear a call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume and the sea-gulls crying,

I must go down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life
To the gull's way and whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

At the Beach

Summer brings us nice warm sun
For swimming, fishing, and lots of fun;
For finding seashells in the sand;
For sunbathing to get a tan;
To do all these things and more
At the beach and seashore.

Sand

(Helen H. Moore)

Sand in my swimsuit,
Sand in my hair,
When I go to the beach
Sand gets everywhere!
I wonder, I wonder,
Oh, how can there be
Sand left at the beach
When there's so much on me?

Foghorns

(Lilian Moore)

The foghorns moaned
in the bay last night
so sad
so deep
I thought I heard the city
crying in its sleep.

Page Ideas

• Use scalloped scissors to trim the bottom part of a boat die-cut or a photo with boats or water. (rounded part of the scallops should be up).
• Cut three different umbrella die-cuts into thirds. Use them to make three striped beach umbrellas
• Trim the ear pieces off the green sunglasses die-cut and put on the upper part of a 3 inch yellow circle - a pair of 'shades' makes the sun look 'cool'.
• Make a peek-a-boo page using a portrait sleeve with no paper in it. Put little punched fishes and some seaweed die-cuts made from paper in it (adhere with the clear photo tape). On the page on either side of it (the portrait sleeve is in between a two page spread) put underwater photos of someone snorkeling and add some of the punched fish to those pages also. So if you put the see-through page over either of the pages you can see the photos and it looks like they are swimming in with lots of fish. Be careful about the placement so that none of the pictures on either page are obscured. The clear shiny of the portrait sleeve makes it really look like water. (Cindy C.)
• Use beach ball stickers in the place of the o's in the word 'pool'.

Ships and Cruises

Page Toppers

Cruise ABC's

A: arriving, attendant, Alaska, airplane, airport, anchor
B: beauty, boat, banquet, Bermuda, bow, bridge (ship's or otherwise)
C: cruising, captain, cabin, crew, crowd, coral, Caribbean, casino
D: diving, dining, deck, dock, dancing
E: excitement, eating, entertainer, entertainment, exercise
F: friends, food, fish, fishing, flowers
G: gulls, galley, gangplank
H: hike, Hawaii, horizon, hotel
I: island, ice
J: joking around, jellyfish, Jamaica
K: kids (yours or others'), Kauai
L: lizards, luggage, lounge chair, lei, lifeboat, lanai
M: marine life, moonlight, money, Maui, midnight buffet
N: navigating, night life, nautical
O: overboard, ocean, Oahu
P: plaits (hair braiding), purser, porthole, paradise, plank, port, ports of call, pool
Q: quite a (day...view...meal.. etc.), quiet, queasy (rough seas!)
R: relax, rest, rum, ride, read, recline, rod and reel, R&R, romance, reef
S: spectacular, shopping, ship, sailing, sun, swimming, sea, snorkeling, scuba, sightseeing, surf, surfing
T: tropical, tropics, tango, tickets
U: under the sea, umbrella, unusual places
V: view, voyage, volcano, vacation
W: wind surfing, window, wave, waving, wish you were here
X: eXploring, eXcellent
Y: Yummy
Z: Zzzzz (napping, sleeping, sunset, sunrise, e.g.,)

ALSO: Use people's names and places. If the Young's were your table mates, make that your Y page.
If you're doing an 8x10 album, you will generally use only one word or concept per letter,
like on the "Yummy" page, including all eating photos.

Top Ten List of Silliest Questions asked on a Cruise Ship

(Paul Grayson, Cruise Director for the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's Sovereign of the Seas Cruise Ship)

10.) Do these steps go up or down?
9.) What do you do with the beautiful ice carvings after they melt?
8.) Which elevator do I take to get to the front of the ship?
7.) Does the crew sleep on the ship?
6.) Is this island completely surrounded by water?
5.) Does the ship make its own electricity?
4.) Is it salt water in the toilets?
3.) What elevation are we at?
2.) There's a photographer on board who takes photos and displays them the next day...the question asked...If the pictures aren't marked, how will I know which ones are mine?
1.) What time is the Midnight Buffet being served?

Water - Miscellaneous

The Lighthouse

(Rea Williams)

Across the waves I can see the light
To guide us safely thru darkest night
Tho breakers crash wildly on the shore
The lighthouse will guide us evermore.

Tale Bearer

(Rea Williams)

Sea wind whispers to trees on the land
Telling secrets he saw written in sand.
Trees nod their heads and seem to agree
As they listen to tales from over the sea.
Trembling with mirth they clap leafy hands,
Wishing they could travel to far away lands.
Being land-locked they can only learn
For fickle sea wind's whistling return,
Knowing the while, as he leaves once more
He's carrying their secrets to a far distant shore.
They know in their hearts, that's the way of the wind
As he goes blithely along bearing tales without end.

Ballad of the Titanic

Oh, they built the ship Titanic
To sail the ocean blue
They thought they had a ship
That the water would never go through
But the Lord's Almighty hand
Said that ship would never land
It was sad when the great ship went down

It was sad, it was sad
It was sad when that great ship went down
(to the bottom of the...)
Husbands and wives,
Little children lost their lives
It was sad when that great ship went down.

Oh they sailed from England's shore
For a thousand miles or more
And the rich refused to associate with the poor
So they put them down below
Where they were the first to go
It was sad when that great ship went down.
(It was sad, it was sad, etc...)

The boat was full of sin and the sides about to burst
When the captain shouted "All the women and children first!"
O the captain tried to wire, but the lines were all on fire...
O it was sad when that great ship went down!
(It was sad, it was sad, etc...)

Oh, they swung the lifeboats out
Over the deep and raging sea
As the band played "Nearer My God to Thee"
Little children wept and cried
As the waves swept over the side
It was sad when that great ship went down.