The Grand River Snooze-Cruise

A couple of months ago, my wife asked me if I was interested in going on a 'Grand River Luncheon Cruise'. It sounded interesting: a three hour tour served up with history and a three-course roast beef dinner. The cruise was duly booked for Sunday, August 8...today.
Now, Sundays are our usual laze-around-the-house, do-nothing days. I might tackle the lawn or a spot of housecleaning, but I'm more likely to do that kind of thing on a Saturday so as to leave my Sunday gloriously free. The car rarely leaves the driveway on a Sunday. Still, this was going to be fun, I thought. Better than vegetating at home.
Hmmm.
We drove to a point between Brantford and Caledonia and boarded the Grand River Princess. The boat--really a big pontoon--is 60' long, 22' wide, and seats about sixty people. We shoved off from our dock in Big Creek and were soon floating down Ontario's "Rio Grande".
Our captain's name was Cynthia and Lord, did she like to ramble. She did make some historical points of interest somewhere in that interminable three-hour stretch, but they were lost in mountains of trivia that would bore the dead. I hate people who say "this was soooooooo boring!" and then proceed to bore you with the boring details...so I guess I'm just going to have to suffer from a bit of self-hate here.
"If you'll look ahead of the boat, you'll see some hydro towers. There are 206 spanning the river. 135 of them carry 223,000 volts and the rest carry 500,000 volts."
"If you'll look to the left, you'll see a campground. This is a lovely place to camp, and you can see the corn...."
"..."
"..."
"...that makes a nice litle shield between you and the highway until October, no, um, September, or, well, early October, or middle of September, actually."
"This house on the right is owned by the Zeros. They're lovely people, and I will now tell you all about them."
But wait...it gets better!
There was silence in the air for over a minute as the boat churned. A sense of suspense was building in Captain Cynthia's mind. You could just tell.
"If you'll look on the left side of the boat coming up here, you'll see this beautiful little promontory we call Turtle Island. The turtles love to sun themselves on the logs here and our record is 30 at one time. We'll slow down here so you can take pictures if you are so inclined."
God help me, some people were. The same ones who were videotaping every passing boat and PWC...and there were entirely too many of the latter, zipping around the Princess trying to splash people.
Anyway, we'd left the turtles behind and Captain Cynthia was waxing poetic about lacrosse sticks when we all got a huge surprise that literally took our breath away.
More turtles.
And they came back for another encore just before we docked. They were the only wildlife we saw on the river if you discounted the asshole Sea-Doo-ers. In point of fact, they were pretty much the only thing we saw on the river at all. I found myself pining for more northern locales about three minutes into the cruise...the rocks and trees of the Canadian Shield, to be exact. At least up north, you're guaranteed a photogenic spot will pass your boat every thirty seconds or so. And the history lectures on the Island Queen out of Parry Sound cover far more interesting material then a series of public...then private...then public again!...campgrounds.
Even the meal was mediocre.
Ah, well, it was a cruise. And there was a nice cool breeze out on the river. But I'll live just as long and die just as happy if I never see another turtle.