Labor Day, 2007

Here are the newly minted licensed boaters. We are especially proud of Alex, who passed his marine safety test with 100%. He was the only under-age person in the class of about eight. Gary and Alex attended four classes of two hours each, at the harbor patrol headquarters in DC. The instructor was suitably impressed, presenting Alex with a t-shirt, pin, and waterproof document box (it's what you keep the boat registration in) for getting only the second 100% score in the class. Who got the other perfect score??? Gary of course. Since Alex isn't 16 yet, he can't drive the boat by himself, but once he is...We don't anticipate that he would have the opportunity to drive the boat alone here in DC, since the marina is considerably far from our house. Even Jenny isn't interested in driving alone to the marina...since it's in southwest DC - and we all know that she's "directionally challenged."

On Saturday the 1st (Happy Birthday to my sisters by the way) we finally put the boat in the water, after last minute adjustments to the new engine. I also slowed things down by going to the grocery store too, but we did make it to Gravely Point by about 3 in the afternoon. It was quite a scene, since Gary's the only one with practical boat experience. I've not a clue about boats. We backed the trailer down the ramp...all's well until we unhook the boat from the trailer. We're (that's Gary too) all used to dealing with lakes, which don't have much of a current - or even waves most of the time. Here we are putting a boat into the Potomac River. Yeah, that's right a river. What do rivers have? Oh yeah, a current. If you don't start the boat, you don't just sort of float there while the person with the trailer goes and parks the car. You start to float away. So at this point Jenny and Alex are in the boat, I'm standing on the dock with no way to get to them and Gary's getting ready to drive the car and trailer to the parking area. They're floating away from the dock out towards the main river and Gary doesn't want anyone to start the engine (it's brand new and we're worried about how it will run anyway). Luckily, the kids are able to paddle and grab onto another boat. Thanks to the other friendly boaters, disaster is averted and we tie up so that we can test the engine. It starts wonderfully under Gary's watchful eye, and needs little tuning. The transmission will be the sticky point. In fact that's just the problem. This boat has always had a problem with shifting in and out of gear. It does go into gear, with a little difficulty, and we start to venture out to the main part of the river. Our luck is short-lived though. We can't power up, so Gary wants to anchor just outside of the channel to work on the problem. Easier said than done. We have no idea how deep it is (and we suspect it is very shallow). It is indeed too shallow, and we are floating downstream and too close to shore. Attempts at paddling are fruitless, and we finally must accept help from a local jet skier. He speaks no English, but is friendly and helpful. General shouts and hand signals ensue...and we manage to get back to the dock. This time we will use our 100 foot rope and try out the forward and reverse functions of the shifter while holding onto the rope.

Once we've adjusted and tested as much as we can, we venture out again. This time things work much better. We catch a nice view of the Washington Monument at dusk and visit our marina. The marina isn't open (because it's about 6:30 by now.) We've learned a few lessons but also want to do some more adjustments. In the end it's probably good we couldn't leave the boat at the marina after all.

On Sunday, the 2nd, the boat stayed in the driveway. Gary and Alex worked on it, Jenny went to a baseball game with Nick (Pretzel boy). I went shopping at the mall...okay peanut gallery - my close friends and relatives know that I'm usually way to busy to shop the mall very much. I did get a new pair of sneakers (to replace the ones with holes), and new lenses for a pair of glasses. My broken watch will have to wait until the repair guy is in during the week. I find out that my broken watch will be cheaper to fix than to buy a new one, which I'm actually happy about. Gary bought it for me a few years ago and I love it. I broke the stem on it so it won't set properly. It's a solar "eco-watch" which never needs winding or a battery. Perfect for me...just have to get the stem replaced though.

For Monday, we've planned to spend the whole day on the water. We're going to put the boat in at Gravely Point again, and try to leave the boat at the marina if we can. Launching goes much better this time, with ropes properly in place to keep drifting under control. The engine starts and runs well, and Gary's shifter adjustments make everything work much better. We determine that we will try to burn through a full tank of gas and see what we can. Mistake for today is that we don't have any charts or maps. We're relying on our knowledge of the land, and know not much about what's in the water. Lucky for us, Gary's good at guessing and has experience with rocks and other likely things which might be in our way. We watch the other boats on the river carefully and only go where they go. We figure that if boats the same size or bigger than us can go somewhere, so can we.

We go up river to Georgetown, and then back toward the marina. We stop at the marina (a pit stop is in order) and try to get them let us leave the boat there. They aren't fooled by our attempts to act like we don't know what we're supposed to do. Calls to the boat surveyor and the insurance company aren't fruitful since it is Labor Day you know. We'll just have to pull the boat out one more time at the end of the day.

Next we decide to try to go to Hoffmaster's on the Occoquan. We know that the Potomac and the Occoquan are connected before you get out to the Chesapeake, but we're not completely sure where we're going. We pass beautiful scenery and Mount Vernon on the Virginia side of the river.

Just south of Mount Vernon, we check the gas and realize that if we don't really know where we are going we will have to turn around so as to have enough gas to get back to where the trailer is. If we knew for sure how far Hoffmaster's was, we would go there and buy more gas. In the end, we've made a nice round trip, had a picnic lunch on the boat, got a little sunburned (hey, we're getting our vitamin D here!), and were home around 5:30 for a nice end of summer dinner. I had some corn on the cob, and we even got the dishes done in time for ice cream at Peterson's.

Why do we always leave the most fund day to be the last one of summer? Lucky for us the weather will stay warm enough to use the boat into October, and depending on how fast it gets cold, maybe even into November. That's one small advantage to the south....in New England we'd be done with boating by the end of September, mid October at the latest.

We'll get the boat survey and inspections done, get the insurance straightened out and have the boat at the marina on Saturday....I hope. Then we don't have to monkey around with the trailer each time. We just have to drive to James Creek, park, and go.

Don't worry neighbors, the boat won't be in the yard much longer!

PS: Last picture, of a large brick building on the water, is Fort McNair. It's right near the marina and used to be a Naval College. It's just a neat building I like. (MLC)