I've been meaning to report a vivid & powerful dream from a couple nights ago. There's not much of a plot, which is fairly normal for me, but more of a setting with activity. This one's aquatic!

My main memory of the dream is a narrow channel of water between buildings, like a street for boats. Well, more like a boulevard with smaller buildings on the right and bigger ones in the distance on the left. I was near the right bank maneuvering a small one-person get-around among the traffic of much larger commercial craft. My little boat looked exactly like my cellphone (shut up) and I straddled it, sort of, then leaned forward and paddled with my hands. I was able to get the thing going at a strong clip this way, comparable to a small outboard motor on a little open fishing boat. Traffic was keeping roughly to the right of the channel in their direction of travel, but those that had to get across just ducked into the stream of oncoming boats and wended through.

As I splashed along in this melange, a huge square-rigged, multiple masted ocean sailing ship charged into the mix, overtaking me on my left. It glided gracefully on, faster than everything else, then as it got maybe 100 yards out ahead of me, it suddenly swung around left, turning completely around within a space narrower than its own length (I bet the captains of those ships would have loved to have remotely comparable agility) then driving back in the direction it had come. It seemed that the crew didn't really have an errand in the direction they were going, as everyone else did, they just wanted to show off.

And their antics were much appreciated. Their cowboy move threw the rest of the traffic into chaos, but all the other craft managed to bank and swerve and avoid the huge ship, then ride its wake back in the direction they needed to go, enjoying the wild moment on their way. I had to bank a little right, then paddle like crazy to get past the oncoming ship and on to where I was going. As I did, another much larger vessel, a paddlewheel riverboat, steamed in from from a narrower adjoining channel to the right and passed in front of me, turning upriver in the direction I was moving.

I skirted along behind it, and toward my destination, which seemed to be a sort of open building -- just a roof on posts, at the right shore just past the channel where the riverboat had come from. The structure was well built of dark, rough wood, with a long, broad slope to the roof and a peak that jutted out over the water. Decks of the same wood stepped down to the water, and that was where I was headed. I have no idea why.