The Adventures of Chippy & Friends: Surfing and Parasailing Lessons

Merry and myself are still soaking up the warm weather and tropical sunshine. I got an email last night from the “regulars” at the Blackbird Tavern at the Woodpile. The Woodpile has experienced a couple of snowstorms, unusually bitter cold temperatures for March, and single digit wind chill factor. The Woodpile has been shrinking at an alarming rate with the demand for firewood to keep warm. I beginning to think us chipmunks should evolve to migrate south for the winter like the birds do. I didn’t realize how much we were missing holing up in our dens all winter.

As you may recall, Merry won the sand castle contest. The prize was surfing and parasailing lessons for two. Merry kindly asked me to join him. (I think he was feeling bad I ended up in last place in the contest. My castle got washed away by the waves before I finished it. – A minor miscalculation on my part.)

The science nerds amongst my blog followers have probably already worked through the physics of a chipmunk surfing and parasailing and are shaking their heads – “Impossible!” The average chipmunk weighs in at 2 to 3 ounces and would be tossed around in the surf like a cork. A chipmunk size surf board doesn’t have sufficient surface area and weight to work. A chipmunk size parasail will not have enough surface area to generate lift to get airborne or otherwise a strong gust would blow me out to sea never to be seen again. (If that happened where would you get your weekly entertainment – the sweater crocheting blog?)

By now your thinking, Chippy is trying pull the fur over your eyes with some tall tale. Seriously, some of the greatest chipmunk minds have worked hard to solve this problem. What?! Merry just informed me the resort hired my cousin Vinnie the P. to solve this. I go on vacation and I still can’t get away from my relatives. … where was I? … Turns out the solution is not try to miniaturize the equipment. Instead the resort hired some human instructors from Hawaii and California. We critters get strap into harness attached to the instructor (sort of like tandem sky diving in which a person gets strapped together with the instructor.)

According to the instructor, these are the biggest waves they have had all season. Three to five foot waves don’t seem all that bad to you. But to us chipmunks, they are nine to fifteen times our height. The human equivalent would be forty-five to seventy-five feet in height.