Welcome to Dave & Kathy Hamilton's

Never Ending Saga

Chapter Three

Sunday the next day we get up and after having the batteries on charge all night I almost forgot about the problems of Saturday. To our surprise Denny Navarre and Diane call and say they are in the neighborhood and we welcomed them to stop over. Well guess what, we end up drinking all the beer we had in the cooler and being a Sunday there is nowhere locally to buy more (Indiana and the No Liquor Sold on Sunday Law). But wait we are not that far from New Buffalo MI, we can buy beer and wine in Michigan, so we load up and take the boat out on a 35 minute trip to New Buffalo for more supplies. The trip there and back went well, no battery problems but I was careful not to overload the system. We did not do much more than that in New Buffalo. We got back, drank some more beer and went to Matey’s for dinner. We decided that we had enough for one weekend and went home.

Friday the 28^th day of June 2002 and we have been boat owners for 3 whole weeks! During the week we celebrated Kris and Larry Ward’s 2^nd anniversary (Kris is Kathy’s daughter). When we got back to the marina I went to the service dept. to pay for our rescue. Not only did we have to pay for the rescue but there was a surprise that we needed two new batteries for the boat, seems both batteries had bad cells. We discussed the bill with B&E and they agreed on a solution that was amicable to both of us. Our life as a new boat owner is a constant learning curve, you learn as you go in the first year anyway.

We are planning a re-naming party for the 6^th of July that is the following Saturday and we have some work to do. There is food to buy and everything you need to make a group of adults happy. Well all went ok through the week all supplies were purchased and ready for the party. Friday, when we got to the boat we had the new name on it and it was all covered up and waiting for the re-naming party on Saturday. Kathy had to work that day and our guests were arriving and we were partying without Kathy until she got there. When Kathy got there we let her unwind and then started the re-naming ceremony around 3:00PM, with the champagne and us on the bow of the boat. The ceremony took about 10 minutes and we really enjoyed ourselves. After doing all that we went from bow to stern and unveiled the new name. The Cops R Us is now officially named and she is beautiful. The way the name looks is the logo for the web site. Unfortunately I did not have the digital camera then and most of the pictures are film and paper. Wanting everyone to see the name I jump in and get some help untying her and back out of the slip and spin her around and show to our friends the new name. Everyone approves the new look and I brought her back in to the slip. Later after a few more drinks some of the more adventurous want to go for a ride on the Cops R Us. The Party winds down and everyone goes home and we clean up and go to bed.

The rest of the summer goes well and we learn quite a bit about boating and had a lot of fun, but the best thing about that first year is the friends we made with our slip neighbors. After a few weeks of getting to know our neighbors it seemed that whenever more than 2 couples got together for a few cocktails or beers, a party was in the making. It was not unusual for that party to grow in number and last well past midnight making the next morning a bit rough. Our routine for the boat is to get there late afternoon or early evening of Friday, unload the truck of our bags and necessities, check to see who is going to be there for the weekend and go to dinner. Saturday and Sunday are spent cleaning waxing and when done looking for a reason to go boating. That was always the easy part the boating, our favorite spot is just to the east of Mount Baldy and anchor off shore in the shallows and just enjoy the day.

The boating season lasted about two months, or that is how long it seemed, and before we know it, it is time to put the Cops R Us to bed for the winter. That first year was rather interesting just learning what to do to get her ready for that long sleep (six months can last a lifetime). I had a problem with the CD changer it did not work when we put the CRU to bed and during the winter I had to go to her and take the changer out to get it repaired. Well the CRU was stored in one of B&E's out buildings and the lighting in this big pole barn is poor at its best. So I had to rely on flash lights, I might add that we did not take everything off of her there are a lot of things left aboard in dark storage. One of the gifts we received from our dear friend Jim Bruce was the talking cookie jar, looks like a cop, and says "STOP MOVE AWAY FROM THE COOKIE JAR." Well guess what I bumped into while in the dark with my hands stuck in a cabinet and in total concentration. It scared the bajeeses out of me and afterward I realized what it was I sat in the semi-dark cabin and had a good laugh at myself, oh well I guess you had to be there...

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