O.K...here's the easy bowline they tought in boyscouts many moons ago: Go get a rope, or a line, or a fat string...something. Even practice with an electric cord like I'm doing as I describe this. Hold it in your left hand, and wrap it around your body, so it comes around your back from left to right. Now you're holding the short end in your right hand, the long end in your left, and its wrapped around your back... Got it? O.K. Now take your right hand, and kind of hold the rope about 3-4 inches or so from the end, so's the end is hanging off your finger tips and the long part is kind of running down your palm. Now put the rope in your right hand on top of the line that you're holding in your left. Kind of cross it over and give it a twist down. The short end will go down on the left side of the long end. As you complete the twist with your right hand, leave a bit of slack in the long end on your left side, andkeep twisting until the short end loops down and comes back around near your tummy and back over the top. If you've done it right, the rope in your left hand will have kind of a "6" in it, and the little rope will be sticking up through the hole in the six. If you're this far, and don't have a "6" with the little rope coming through it, you're a bad boy and need to start over. Keep messing with it..You'll eventually see how the little flip over works. Once you've done it once, its kind of like sex...you won't forget it. When you finally have it in the six, just wrap the short end around the back side of the long end and back down through the six. You know..."The little rabbit comes up out of his hole, around the tree, and back down his little hole again.." toni & bev froehling "Koinonia" 35' Ponderosa Boathoused on the Thea Foss Waterway in Tacoma, WA