Toddler Nautical Fun at Rock Creek Park

“Ahoy mate! How goes there?” says one craft sailboat to the other. 

“Just chugging along in this beautiful weather. Cloudy with the calmest of waters. Have you seen Sailboat Sally?” 

“My dear friend, I believe I saw the small human lift her up and move her downshore.” 

“By Jobe! Set sails & raise anchors! We must sally forth!”

At least that’s how I imagine fictional animated sailboats talk to each other while a 2 year old girl picks them up and places them in the water. My daughter received a birthday favor from a girl turning 7 which included materials to create 4 foam sailboats - color me surprised by the birthday favor standards these days. So, each day leading up to the weekend, we constructed a boat until we had a mini armada. By Friday afternoon, my daughter was bursting with excitement to sail her boats. She ran around the house looking for any source of water - the kitchen sink, the toilet, the tub. To avoid potential toilet disasters, I quickly researched streams and rivers. The Potomac River being too large and having seen a cool cobblestone-like bridge in pictures, we opted for Rock Creek Park in Maryland.

Like many of our adventures, we hadn’t been on site until the day we took these photographs. So, it was an adventure alone in finding parking, walking to the location, and finding lots of photograph angles. We parked next to a horse arena, which gave us a relatively short walk to the bridge. I was hoping we’d find horses grazing or trotting around. No such luck but my daughter had brought her pink unicorn along. We talked about how it was the horse’s cousin and therefore deserved a walk around the horse arena. Although, I’m fairly certain she is catching on to the verbal tricks I use to get her in the camera frame. I can only outwit her for so long. The student will soon surpass the teacher.

The sailboats kept my toddler occupied for a while, which let me do some quick sprints up and down the shore trying to find some great camera angles. My brain moving faster than my feet could take me. Sometimes I would only get a single shot that turned out well - a wide aperture is hard to nail for moving subjects. My daughter, though, had a blast watching the boats move down the stream and wait with baited breath for her daddy to catch them downstream. My spouse and I were both shuffling around trying to replenish the boats upstream for our little one. There was one wiley boat that got away and my spouse had to run downstream and wade in the water to catch it.

At one point, my spouse thought it would be fun to move the boats upstream to the other side of the bridge so our daughter could catch the boats downstream. We thought she’d enjoy saving the boats. Instead, she got bored waiting for the boats and picked up a stick. My spouse and I ended up catching the sailboats - not all well-meaning plans come to fruition. However, I do marvel at the imagination of youth. What was once a stick transformed in the hands of our child. It became a sword, a wand, a tool for poking the soil, and a walking stick. I was reminded of Gandalf and the hobbits trekking through vast lands to reach Mordor. 

While I had thought the use of props convenient for toddlers, I realized how truly captivated a child can be with simple things. A seed was planted that would grow to form thoughts and ideas. I realized I wanted to capture moments like these where a picture not only captured the child but their fascination with a subject. These moments are fleeting and it’s hard to know what will stick through the ages. For all we know, our daughter might become a sailor in the future. If that happens, we can go back to these images and say “This is where it began.” And that’s what I dream of capturing for others. I want photography to be an experience for all the people involved.