Our First Dinghy Ride

We took our sails down, a couple days ago, to inspect and store them away from UV rays and out of our way while we work on re-rigging.  It was a job that we were waiting to do because it's been so breezy all week.  We were afraid that the sails would get away from us and flog out of control, so we ended up taking them down in the middle of the night.  We had been waiting all week for the wind to die down, and it seemed the only opening we had was that night. Funny, when you want there to be wind, it's nowhere to be found, but when you want no wind, it stays at a steady 20 knots....Aeolus is a funny and playful god.  Anyhow, we took them down with little trouble and brought them to the "Irish Sail lady" to have them repaired.  Seems we only have a year left in both our staysail and our jib.  So, another thing to add to our wish list.

Frank got the dinghy started a couple days ago as well.  For some reason, our outboard was having trouble starting.  Surprise, surprise.  Seems it was because old fuel had been sitting in it for over a year. He had to drain all the fuel lines, carburetor and fuel filters, and put in new fuel.  That did the trick and we were able to take our first dinghy ride.  We even got her onto a plane, which was really fun.  Felt like we were riding a bull.  Haha!  After our ride, we added this stuff called "Seafoam," which is a fuel stabilizer,  engine/carburator cleaner, and all around magic formula that we don't expect to work, but hope it will, so that Frank doesn't have to take apart the carb and rebuild it.  Let's keep our fingers crossed.

We're still awaiting our notarized bill of sale for or dingy as well.  Our broker screwed up royally, and failed to do the paperwork for it...good job, Tom!  His excuse for this was that he "forgot" that the boat came with a dinghy.  In the state of Florida, you aren't allowed to use any motorized vessel without registration, and in order register it, you must have an original notarized BOS and a statement of origin.  It had never been registered (because the previous owner had planned on using it in Sweden), and no one at the tag office seems to understand that, so they're making us jump through hoops just to get the damn thing registered.  Not only that, but Tom has misinformed us several times concerning the process, and we have ended up going to the agency three times with no success.  Apparently, Tom was being lazy about contacting the previous owner, and forged some fake documents (using Photoshop) which of course, the agency refused to accept.  It is now still in the process of being "taken care of," which he should've done over a month ago.  It's ridiculous how someone can take a 10% cut from the sale, and still fail to do something as simple as getting your paperwork straightened out.  It sucks because every time we use it, we are risking getting a ticket for having an unregistered boat until we get the notarized form from this guy in Sweden.  Now, you tell me, after you sold your boat and took a 50% loss on the price from when you bought it a year ago, would you prioritize going to a notary office to get the thieving bastard new owners (aka-us) the correct paperwork?  Frank says if he gets a ticket for using the dinghy, he is just going to send it to the broker to pay... seems fair enough to me.