Yeah, we know how to do that...

It has been an interesting work week... lots of people on the cruise boats, the killer mosquitoes, and marina antics. On my last blue shirt day, there wasn't much mechanic or maintenance work to be done, so I helped out on the rental docks. Goodness, those dock hands have their hands full: fitting people for PFDs, getting them checked out for kayaks, canoes, and powerboats... some of the things we all take for granted (like paddling a canoe or kayak) is foreign to many of our guests. Many of them like the idea of a canoe, because it seems to sit higher out of the water... or, they think it is more stable... or, it just seems more like a mountain lake outing kinda thing.

We sent out one family on two canoes... mom, dad, two kids around 10, and two small kids (2 or 3 years old). After much screaming back and forth, one canoe center-punching the other, dad trying to tell mom how to paddle (while holding his own paddle like a baseball bat), the two small children cried in harmony. Mom kept saying, "I can't do this!" adding to the kids' fear. Since they hadn't gotten far from the dock, I offered them the option of just coming back to the dock and we wouldn't charge them. Nope, dad didn't like that idea. They kept flailing with paddles and eventually got around the end of the dock... while they disappeared from sight, we could still hear the young kids crying. Ah, yes, making nice family vacation memories.

The canoes are the second most cause of frustration, generally because people don't understand how to steer or coordinate the front/rear paddlers. One would think that it would be instinctive that when you are about to whack into something with the canoe, you'd stop paddling! Maybe even consider back paddling. But, nooooooo... as they whack into boats, docks, the shoreline, they holler, "How do you stop this thing?" while continuing to paddle. I listen to our dock wranglers explain to people how it all works... I see their nodding heads... yet they don't seem to grasp the concept.

The first most frustrating? Thanks for asking... that would be the small powerboat rentals. We had two of them in one day miss the dock and drive the boats up onto the shore! They are provided with maps, told where to look for landmarks, yet they are constantly getting lost. Or, even though a dock wrangler has them start the boat themselves at the dock before they go out, the motor will stall and they can't get it started again. We send out the rescue boat, pull the motor once, and it fires right up. When we make a pass around the area with the rescue boat, we regularly find people not wearing their PFDs, even though they are told repeatedly that they must be worn at all times.

I think people must believe that they are in an amusement park and are somehow "being protected"... like the thrill of a rollercoaster, but the knowledge it must meet safety standards. When they leave the docks here, they are heading out into a wilderness area.

One worried mother got near panic stricken when her two teenage daughters didn't come back within two hours in a rental kayak. We contacted the rescue boat (that was out on another call), that driver found the girls and called back to assure the mother that the girls were just fine and were heading back in. The woman continued with her dramatic panic... the manager put her on the rescue boat and took her out so she could see that the girls were fine and were really on their way back in.

People will look us right in the eye and say, "Oh, we know how to paddle one of these," and then it takes them a half hour to go less than 100 feet... while they swerve back and forth, do 360s, and whack a couple boats and docks.

There isn't a day that goes by that we don't have some of these small boats turn right in front of our cruise boats. The tiller steering on the power rentals completely baffles many folks. Many catch on to it right away... just as many don't.

The concept of "No Wake" in the marina is another concept that most don't grasp. I am amazed that we rent to folks who don't speak English... kinda hard to give good instructions when one is reduced to "charades."

Fun times.