Chris and Amy Abroad: Prepare to be boarded

The advertising for the boatshare may contain slight exaggerations

This past weekend Amy and I took the course and passed the tests for our Australian boat licenses. What spurred this was our desire to participate in a boat share in our time here, which is basically like a vacation time share but instead of getting a condo on the beach, you get access to a boat.

Passing the examinations were no cakewalk, even for a seasoned boater such as Amy. For the written part, there was a mass of information to learn about navigation and markings on boats, i invite anyone to try the sample test. In addition to this trial, there is also a practical section in which one must demonstrate basic competency driving a boat. For Amy, this was no problem but I had a greater challenge to overcome. For one, I could barely understand the Aussie instructor. In addition to this, I had no idea how to do what he was requesting. Case in point, he had me practice docking the boat against a concrete bridge abutment, rather than a nice, padded, wooden dock. Bad call. It resulted in him shouting, "NO NO NO NO!!!!!" and grabbing the wheel from me right as we banged into it. I declined to point out to him that "NO" is not really a specific instruction such as left/right/forward/back. Thank God it wasn't our boat. I passed regardless.

Docking malfunction

What this means is that now we will have access to 2 boats - a 24' ski boat and a 27' ocean cabin cruiser to further our diving, skiing, wakeboarding, tubing, fishing, spearing, and general cruising around. Not to mention that we will be able to take any guests that may happen to come visit out to enjoy any of these things.

Out on the ocean, anything goes and in due time we will be hosting monkey knife fights, offshore gambling, and conducting weddings of any nature (person/animal, person/inanimate object, etc).