Please hold my calls – (I’ll get back to you in November)
By John Morris
For boaters in this country, every boating season day counts. To make the most of your on-the-water experience, getting organized in advance is critical.
You can’t perfect the entire season in one session, so we suggest one month at a time is optimal. July, the upcoming month, is a great opportunity to plan your boating and meet your social obligations, with a stress-free look at the upcoming 31 days.
The first step is to schedule guests. These divide into a number of subcategories: close friends, relatives, business obligations, neighbours, people who randomly saw a photo of your boat and whom you invited. “We’ll take you for a spin this summer for sure.” You can, carefully, mix and match guests although political or inter-family screaming matches can potentially disrupt your dockmates. Tread carefully.
Some folks feel it’s important to do laundry, even in the summer. Let’s allocate alternate Tuesday afternoons (special note – that means underwear x 14) but not on long weekends for obvious reasons.
And let’s be realistic – life goes on. Dentist and vet appointments can be scheduled on Thursday between 10 and noon. Sometimes those practitioners are busy and suggest other days. That’s the problem – they just don’t get it. And yes, the boat needs a survey for insurance but the only day we can accommodate is Friday the 12th. But the surveyor can’t make it. How about the 8th?
Normally, Friday is provisioning for the weekend. Monday clean-up and pump out after the weekend guests and occasionally attention to fuel, minor repairs and washing the dishcloths. Even if you’re a cruiser, racers invite crew and you know more than you think. Sign on for some PHRF fun.
We have purposely left the last few days of July empty – this is the time for the annual summer cruise.
Even the best-made plans sometimes need minor adjustments. Arrangements change or unexpected relatives drop in. You know the drill.
As we get close to July 1 we try to keep updated and keep calm. But by Figure 3 you can see the calendar is getting pretty crowded.
That’s just one month but you can relate to the rest of the calendar, I am sure. Perhaps if the climate was better, the days longer. But loving your boat won’t schedule itself. Work? Excellent question – we’ll fit that in. But so far things look pretty good and it will be a cracking summer onboard.
