First day on the water!

So we got up, had some breakfast, and then got right to the boat. I spent the morning going over the boat with water, a rag, and a towel. There was lots of dust from sitting in the marina on a trailer. Timmy was a huge help cleaning the swim deck which was really dirty. He was really diligent and helpful and did a really good job with the scrub brush. Cyndie helped when she could, but was busy baking for and event in the afternoon at church. Emma was drying where I washed, but she got cold kind of fast. We headed to the lake around 10. It was around 40/45 degrees ... if only it were yesterday when it was up in the 60s!

We have literally never done the launch before, even really as observers. It was nice to have a cool November in WI to do the first one. We had the kids in the truck with a movie playing, so we had plenty of time and space to take our time launching. It went fairly smoothly, and then we were on the lake.*

*In the interest of full disclosure, I do have to mention the problem where I went floating out into the middle of Williams Bay with no power. I misunderstood how to use the throttle ... there's a button at the base of the throttle arm, and I understood that you had to push that in to shift into gear. Not so much, you just push the button in on the top of the arm (with your thumb) and then go forward or back to get into forward and reverse. So I'm floating away (Cyndie said that Emma joked about "can we pick daddy up on the other side of the lake!) and then Cyndie gets some fishermen to rescue me, and one of them showed me what was up. Then we were golden!

It was great! The boat ran really well. Really smooth. Nice when cruising along the shore looking at the mansions (Lake Geneva, WI, the Newport of the west ... man, tons of huge houses to gaze at). Nice and stable and much warmer than at higher speeds! I'm already glad we got the wrap around windshield, because when we went up to full speed the 45 - 50 degree temps went south quickly with the wind. Cyndie and kids shut the wind door, and closed up the windshield, and it was pretty still in the cockpit.

We motored down to Lake Geneva to pick up my folks, Laura, Gow, and their kids*. Then we cruised around a bit, and went fast a bit, and hung out in the mid 40s degrees, laughing at ourselves. Sally really liked to go fast, but then kind of got bored/tired/cold so we ended that part of the trip, and dropped the crew, and our kids, back at Lake Geneva (my folks drove the kids back to Williams Bay for us).

*I should mention here that the boat came with no flotation equipment, so we borrowed some from Jack, the guy that Cyndie sails with.

Trailering the boat went as well as could be expected, with a few helpful hints from other folks pulling their boats out, and then it was back home ... a fun, cold, exhilarating day.

Cyndie and I were just talking ... it was a perfect first day on the lake in November in that we had a great time, but we were easily cold enough to not be eager for much more time out there until spring!

Now to winterize the boat and get it put away for the winter ...