The boat and the Bay

The boat and the Bay

Bill Scholle

Published 03/23/2007 - 4:12 p.m.

If you have been faithfully following these bi-weekly columns (and who hasn’t?), you know by now about our boating experiences in and around (and aground) our waterways. You know, for example, that other boaters feel that we are somewhat inept at docking, steering, line-tying, line removal, communicating with others, navigating and generally knowing what we are doing in a boat. Other than that, we are pretty good.

We have enjoyed belonging to the Discovery Bay Yacht Club and taking an occasional Club trip to the Sacramento Jazz Festival and Pier 40 in San Francisco. Occasionally we have stopped overnight in, say, Vallejo or Martinez. But that was just to bump into things. Some of our best friends have been sorely challenged to keep us from sinking or getting lost. Fortunately, people like the Tom Devoes and the Dick Jamisons and many others have managed to keep us dry and our friendship has endured. Barely.

The other day we thought that, maybe, the problem was that our boat was either too big or not big enough. We thought that, maybe, we need a different boat. So we went to see our friend Matt, who owns Pacific Boat Center there on Bethel Island. We found that Matt is still the same wonderful guy he was when we re-financed our house so that we could buy our first boat. Same smile. Same engaging attitude. Same jokes.

So we said, “Matt, we have this fine boat that we bought from you just three years ago and it has very low hours (that seems to be somewhat important) and it still looks brand new. What will you give us for it if we buy another boat from you?”

“About half.”

“About half what?”

“What you paid for it.”

Well, that sounded fair enough to me and so we looked around some and spotted this new one. It’s smaller than the old one and it looks like you couldn’t get into much trouble with it. It looks like it could get us pretty much anywhere we wanted to go. We weren’t thinking City anymore ‘cause that’s too dangerous and, besides, our few remaining friends said that if we went there … they wouldn’t. Sorta’ put a damper on the idea.

Anyway, you want to know if we fell for Matt’s tricks again, huh?

Sure.

We called the finance guy the next day and he, too, was just as happy to hear from us this time as he was last time and, “of course … there are some great loans available for the next two days only …”

He came over and were we ever lucky … said that we got the last one.

Now, when the new boat arrives we will be all set. We can go anywhere on the Delta. Maybe even further. Can go down to the new Elks Club there in Pittsburg and up to Paradise Cove out of Stockton or one of the other places that they show on the map you get when you buy the boat. When you buy the boat, you get the map free. How can you pass that up?

Then after we ordered the new boat we headed over to the Pleasanton Boat Show. That’s a big mistake. Person should never go to a boat show. But know what’s good? The new Sea Doos will arrive about the same time as the new boat.

Won’t that be great!

So then, yep, you guessed it: we will be able to go to all these places in boat or on Jet Ski!

… assuming that we learn to do that steering, docking and line stuff …

If you should see a couple of old people flying by on the water (hair disheveled, eyes filled with fear with an expression of sheer shock), don’t be alarmed. It’s just us on our way to Sunday Brunch.