I'd just picked up two new propane tanks and had headed down the dock when I heard the Volkswagen. You know the sound, distinctive and always the same regardless of whether it is a bug or a van. Reaching the boat slip I turned in headed for the back of the houseboat with a glance over my shoulder at the VW van. It had just come to a stop, its passage revealed by the drifting dust cloud of powdered Utah sandstone. As my eyes focused, I saw a blonde step back from the driver's door and push it shut. I registered a bare belly and green bikini top and had just caught a glimpse of the passenger getting out when I stepped beyond the houseboat window and they were out of sight. I was already setting the tanks down and stepping back to the window before I had a chance to think why. My titty radar had gone off; I'd realized the passenger had been topless. One step back and I could see a t-shirt going over the brunette's head; I was too late to confirm what I thought I'd seen. I watched them headed down the dock momentarily, then decided to finish the propane tanks before I distracted myself.
By the time I had the two tanks wrenched in place it was break time. Break time was anytime a good looking girl needed to be ogled. In this case - two good looking girls. Maybe I'd have to double my break time.
I walked up to the store and stepped inside, eyes getting accustomed to the darkness after the bright outside light. I stepped over to the cooler and selected a drink, while my eyes surveyed the small store for the girls. I spotted the fluorescent green bikini bra first, and noted positively that it covered two medium sized breasts located below a set of green eyes and a blonde ponytail. She looked over, our eyes meeting. I nodded and smiled and was rewarded with a smile in return. The T-shirt was on a brunette, short hair; I couldn't see her eyes, but the face was just as cute as the first. "Wow," I thought, "this is the best thing that's happened in a couple of days."
Not that I didn't see lots of good looking girls, actually just the opposite. But house boating is a family affair; mom and dad buy the houseboat, kids of all ages come along. I saw cutie after cutie, got to speak and flirt with all kinds of young ladies; got to get glares from all kinds of protective fathers, sometimes smiles from mothers that appreciated a hard bodied male; and then half an hour later they were off for seven days. A week later, they'd show up again, sunburned, suntanned, and ready to go back to their boyfriends back home. Sometimes I'd get a phone number and an invitation to call them if I ever got to Timbuktu -- but I never did. Sometimes during the checkout I'd get an invitation to join them that evening for water skiing or dinner, which would only be a one-time thing because the next day they'd be twenty or thirty miles away and I've have no idea how to find them. Most of the time that's all I got, lots of flirting, but not much action.
On that day, I was dressed as usual -- cut-off jeans and not much more. Working on the docks and boats, it was just too hot to not get wet whenever possible. Officially we weren't supposed to "swim" in the harbor area, but if there wasn't a prop that needed changing or a control cable that needed inspection there was always the "slip" and fall into the water. Sometimes we'd need to fetch a boat from a mooring. The excuse was that it was so much faster to just swim out, climb on and bring it back in, but we learned not to do that when the Rangers were around. I fell in the water a lot during the summer.
I didn't think anything about my physical shape at the time. Two years out of high school where I'd been a running star, I'd kept up the running, five miles before work and before the heat every morning. Then working shirtless every day, I was bronzed and buff. I never thought about it at the time, but looking back I realize now that often the girls were checking me out as much as I was checking them out.
I glanced back into the store as I went back out. We weren't supposed to hang out in the store, or fraternize with the house boaters. Non-house boaters were supposed to be the same, but they were often times not quite as intent on coming or going and I was never one to pass up the opportunity to say hi to a pretty girl. I went back out to the houseboat I was working on and pulled up a chair on the front deck. The girls, whenever they came out, would have to walk right by me.
As they walked down the dock towards me I saw the bikini say something to the t-shirt, and the t-shirt glanced up my way. "How's it going?" I said as they walked up. They had a bag of ice and two six packs of beer.
"Good. How you doing?" T-shirt answered.
"Real good -- as long as I keep wet and get a cold drink every now and again." I answered. "You been swimming?"
"Not yet. We just got here," bikini said.
"Best thing is to get wet and keep that way. "Air conditioning" at Lake Powell is neck deep, and keep your hat wet."
They both laughed. "Where can you go to go swimming around here? We really haven't seen any place to get to the water's edge."
"Boy I tell ya," I began. "The truth is, Powell is real hard to get to -- without a boat. The highway crosses it in two places, and both are across high bridges. There's the campground, just down the way there, but it's nothing to speak of. Most anyplace else in this area requires a four wheel drive. You can go down towards the other marinas, it's flatter down there and you'll find some beaches you can get to -- but it's another 70 miles and there's tons of people too."
"Oh." They both looked sort of disappointed. "We were kind of hoping maybe there was someplace without a lot of people..."
"Never been here before?"
"No, this is our first time. Some friends told us that we should come down here, that there were lots of secluded canyons and places where we could get away from everyone and be by ourselves; catch a little sun -- that kind of thing."
"That's true. I've talked to people coming back in that have told me they've gone several days in a row without seeing another boat. But that's up here at the North end. Down south -- that's where all the crowds are. But without a boat -- it's dang hard." I paused momentarily. "You don't have to stand there in the sun, pull up a seat." I indicated the other chairs on the front deck."
They didn't hesitate, once I told them it was OK, they climbed right on with me. "Want a beer?" the blond asked.
"Oh, you bet; thanks." I took one of the offered beers, they each opened one too. The gentle wiggle of the brunette's breasts when she popped her beer top confirmed to me what my radar had told me earlier -- she was braless.
"You ladies got names?" I asked.
