Houseship #5

Getting the ship and getting all the supplies yesterday was quite a memorable event. We arrived at the rental office soon after 8am and were assisted by a very nice knowledgeable girl. She processed all the paperwork, and we headed down the hill (because the water level is 90 feet below full pool) to The Ship. We found our ship which was #S72. We inspected it for necessities i.e. Coffee filters, pillows, paper towels, ice bucket, and ice cooler capacity and soon our instructor arrived to teach us how to houseboat. Jerry & Vickie left and drove the van to the loading dock. The rest of us stayed with the instructor as we went to the fuel dock to fill up the tank. We filled up the 290-gallon fuel tanks and moved to the loading dock. Vickie & Jerry were waiting on us with carts full of luggage. We loaded the luggage onto the ship realizing immediately there was no place for luggage on the ship. We said we’d worry about that later and sent the shopping team off to Wall y Mart. With knowledge and lists in hand Jerry, Vickie, and Judy headed off for supplies. Brenda, Captain Jimmy, & I stayed for houseboat training. The young houseboat dude whose name was Will from New Zealand proceeded to take us through the indoctrination (of course Will had only been working houseboat training for 6 mos. of the 10 mos. he’d been in the US). When I asked Will why the lights on the right side of the AC electrical panel were not on he said "Oh they are just burned out". After I proved to him that there was no juice on that side of the panel, he called the electrician who took the screws out of the panel and condemned the ship to the repair dock. We then moved all of our stuff across the dock to our new home #S76 which had a functional electrical system. Jimmie, Will, and I proceeded through the training. It was soon obvious that we knew way more about the boat than Will did from studying the DVD that they sent us. As soon as we had had all the compulsory CYA in doctrination we tipped the young boy and sent him on his way. I called Vickie on the cell phone at the Wally Mart and she reported the shopping was proceeding and I informed her our new ship number was S76 so they would not put the groceries on the wrong ship. Jimmie, Brenda, and I sat around on the new ship awaiting the arrival of supplies. In the meantime, Brenda and I went through the training on the powerboat we had rented to tow with us. The training involved.... here’s the boat....here’s the lifejackets....here’s the throttle...here’s the key....you push the throttle forward to go fast....end of story. The crew adjourned back to the boat to await the supplies again. Finally I got a cell phone call from Vickie that they were in route with supplies. I stole a cart from another houseboater who was not using it and stood prepared in the parking lot for unloading. Vickie said they were 3 minutes away 15 minutes before they arrived. Jimmie and I stood with the dock cart in the wind driven sandstorm in the parking lot awaiting their arrival. After we were thoroughly sand blasted the overloaded Previa came waddling down the drive. We proceeded to unload the contents of the van into the rolling dock cart. The first load was so heavy Jimmie and I tandem pulled it. Finally all of the supplies were transferred to old S76. Jerry told me that his first trip through the Wally Mart checkout was $576.00 (of course he had the liquor list). The girl at the checkout asked him if he was starting a business but he said no it was just a good party. She asked him if she could come. He said only if you have a boat. We proceed to stow the supplies in every available orifice in the kitchen, which is very large by boat standards including a full size stove, microwave, and refrigerator. Something I forgot to mention was that the wind was 15 mph gusting to 24 mph on our inaugural boat day. We astutely decided that since it was already 3pm (dark coming at 6:15) that we would stay ti ed up to the dock and shore power the first night. All of the folks we talked to on the dock said that that was a wise decision considering the wind and water conditions. We festooned the vessel with our four strings of Flamingo hanging lights. We then fixed dinner consisting of slaw and Mario's’Salmon Tailgate Packets then watched a movie and went to bed planning an early departure.

More later....

Wes