Welcome to Dave & Kathy Hamilton's

Never Ending Saga

Chapter Two

Perfect, we would trade our 1995 Camaro for a 1995 Sea Ray, Sundancer cruiser. Well we talked to Mr. Nichols for a while longer that Sunday afternoon, we filled out a credit application and went home. We were naturally excited and as the week progressed that excitement grew. Mid-week we got a call from Mr. Nichols and he wanted us to bring the Camaro to them so they could see if it was worth what we wanted for it. That was Wednesday or Thursday and by Friday we had all the financing in line. They gave us what we wanted for the Camaro and we added a few grand more and we were ready to sign the papers. On Saturday, June 8, 2002 we signed the papers on our First Boat. Fred the finance guy sat us in his office and gave us our copies of the Bill of Sale and the keys to the boat and said “Your in Slip #50, are you going to spend the night”? We had never even thought that we would be in the water let alone in a slip at the marina and had not packed anything to spend the night. While we were first bargaining with Mr. Nichols we asked if there were any slips available for the year and he said that he did not think so because of the time of the year. So we were really surprised when we found our boat in Slip #50. I think we did go back to South Bend and packed an overnight bag and went back to the boat for the night. That was the first of a lot of nights spent on the boat.

The next day was Sunday and Mr. Nichols came over to the boat and had shown me how things worked aboard the boat. We waited until the next weekend to do a shakedown cruise and Mr. Nichols took us out of the harbor and into the shallows around Washington Park and Mount Baldy to show me the workings of the engine and trim tabs and how they work together. It was really interesting to see how to make her run smooth and level with very little effort. After a while we went back in and now Darrell had to teach me how to dock her. I did very well the first couple of times going into the slip and that was all well and good but Darrell was not going to let me be on my own until I screwed up and he did not have to wait too long. After I had corrected my mess up he was satisfied and said that I was ready to go it on my own.

Well Kathy and I had decided to rename our boat from, Perfect Layover to Cops R Us. I remember horror stories about hexed boats after having been renamed so I did some research on the internet and found a few ceremonies to do it right. Boatus.com had the most colorful ceremony, it was a two-part thing, one to un-name her and another to re-name her, so I printed it up and Kathy and I agreed to perform the first part just as soon as we could get the name Perfect Layover off of her. Then we had to remove all mention of her old name from onboard. Well the un-naming ceremony was held on a calm and smooth Saturday in June of 2002, we went out and anchored off Mount Baldy, (a bald headed looking sand dune just to the west of the Michigan City Harbor.) about a mile off shore and turned on our favorite Jazz Station WNUA 95.5 out of Chicago and climbed out on the bow and read through the script. We were really enjoying ourselves with a bottle of bubbly, I think it was a decent bottle of champagne and plastic champagne glasses. When we concluded the ceremony I climbed back to the cockpit and went to start the engine, all I got was a clicking sound every time I turned the ignition switch. I knew that that meant a dead battery, but I have two batteries, so I went to the battery switch and I would turn the switch to the other battery and be on our way. Well guess what? I had the switch on BOTH, Oh No what to do now? I really did not know our neighbors well enough to call anyone at the Marina, I did not have anyone’s cell number, and I know not to many of them sit in their slip with the VHF radio on. So I called the B&E Marine on the radio, and to my surprise they answered. The time of the day was like five minuets to closing time and I told them my predicament and they tried to walk me through it with out having to come out. We had juice in the batteries but not enough to turn the engine and finally after none of their suggestions worked they asked for our location and I gave them an idea of where we were anchored. They sent out a crew to find us and get us back to our slip. When they finally found us, there are a lot of boats out on a Saturday in June, and they were looking for a boat named Perfect Layover??? (I did not tell them that we took that name off.) When they finally found us they put aboard a young man with a battery pack/jumper, hooked up to the battery and I did manage to get the engine started and we were on our way. Kathy and I looked at one another and began to wonder out loud about all of this, that maybe the boat spirit did not like not having a name. We limped back to the slip and went out to eat.

E-mail Dave E-mail Kathy