Boat shopping

Darcy and I had some trouble with the boat yesterday. We ended up needing a tow, but not before Henry had a chance to enjoy himself!

Jimmy came to our rescue, as always!, and he didn't have his boat in yet, so he picked us up in his daughter's little boat (LOL!):

I can't believe that little thing towed us and our big boat!

He and our friend Kevin worked on the boat for quite a while yesterday. They think it needs a new water pump. It's not a huge expense, but the boat is a 1987 and it's ratty looking, and once one thing goes wrong in older things, sometimes that means something else will follow. Either way, it got us talking about getting a new boat.

Where we live, there are a lot of no wake zones, and plenty of sandbars. There are a few areas where you can go fast, and I love tubing, but I'm not sure it's worth getting another speed boat. We have so many friends that visit, and we're limited on who we can take out with us. If we got a pontoon boat, we could fit lots more people, and we could probably still tow a tuber off the back.

We stopped by a local marina today, and they had a few used pontoon boats. Of course the salesperson took us to the most expensive boat first, and we fell in love with it immediately.

Here's a picture of the outside (boring):

Here is a sundeck, changing area and the seating in the back, and the captain's chair (check out the SINK!!!):

My gorgeous captain's chair and control station:


I think I'm in love.

It's more than I wanted to spend. WAY more than I wanted to spend. Naturally, I've already justified the expense in my little head, so the boat is as good as mine, knowing me.

It's a bit of a bummer to have to buy a new boat (well, actually, that's not a bummer at all - that's fun), but it's a bummer that my old boat is broken. I know it happens, and it's old, and we got a really good deal on it. I knew that if it lasted me one summer, it would be well worth my money, and it did. We used it all the time last year.

Yesterday was one of those days that some people may call a bad day. I just got my boat in the water, and it broke down. Then I got a call from the passport agency saying the US had flagged my passport application, and they need more documents from me and I need to fill out an extra questionnaire.

I guess if you apply for a passport just 2 weeks before leaving to fly to the United Arab Emirates, and your whole round trip is only 5 days (with 30 hours of travel), this raises a red flag. LOL

I sent them a copy of the brochure showing that I'm speaking, and every other piece of ID and proof of existence I could come up with.

I had to postpone my trip to NY which means I'm missing an event tonight I really wanted to attend, because I had to be around to deal with my passport issues all day today. It's 3:35PM, and I still haven't heard that they have everything they need from me.

I called the hotel this morning to see if I could switch my reservation to tomorrow night, and they said yes, but since I booked it through hotels.com - hotels.com would have to call them to make the arrangements.

When hotels.com called, they said I couldn't reschedule, and that I'd lose my $300 if I didn't go tonight.

Meanwhile, I'm still supposed to be leaving for Dubai in four days.

So yes, it has all the makings for a bad day, but it really wasn't. I had a great day yesterday. Until we broke down, we had a wonderful boat ride. Even after we broke down, I had a blast sitting on the bow and paddling us. I had no idea that little paddle could make the boat move so much!

Within minutes of breaking down, three of our neighbors were ready to help. Right as it was happening, a man on shore called out to see if he could help and if we needed a tow. We told him we were all set because we knew we'd call Jimmy. Jimmy came right to our rescue, and as he was towing us back, another neighbor called to see if we needed help, as they saw us having some trouble.

Then, Jimmy spent almost his entire day trying to fix the boat, and he recruited the help of our friend Kevin as well. They just gave of their time so freely, and it's just so nice to have people like that around.

I also got to go out for a second ride with Alison when I was testing it out, and we didn't go far, but we had a nice ride too.

After that, we had a nice night outside with Krissy, Brooke, Alison, Darcy, the kids and the guys. Darcy even kind of had a fire going for a while.

It's tough that my boat is broken, and that I don't know if I'll be able to go to Dubai, but it's okay. I can get a new boat. I can most likely do a videoconference for Dubai, and I purchased insurance on my plane tickets, so I can put them towards our Italy trip if I can't go.

Everything will be okay. Worry accomplishes nothing, and rolling with the punches makes life soooo much easier.

I choose joy.

Anxiety is just no fun.