Big Boat

As part of my reward for finishing as one of the top weight loss members of my team in the recent weight loss program my work put on, I got to take a bus to Door County, and have dinner on my CEO's yacht. While I am sure that it isn't the biggest boat in the world, it was by far the biggest boat I have been on. Once I have access to some pictures I will put some up.

The yacht was amazing. It is 112 feet, has 4 state rooms (bedrooms), a galley (kitchen), living room (can't remember the nautical term), a deck on the front of the boat, a deck on the back, and an upper deck, along with crew quarters, and the place where you run the boat. It had 4 bathrooms. The captain lives on the boat, he has no other home.

He keeps the boat in the Caribbean during the winter, in the spring sails it up to the St. Lawrence seaway, through the Great Lakes, and down to Milwaukee for the summer.

Each engine cost $450,000 (it has two), it holds over 5000 gallons of gas, and when running at full throttle can go through 200 gallons an hour.

Most of the time, I would feel a little bitter about someone with a boat such as this. While talking with my CEO, he told a story about the name of the boat. The boats name is ________ ___________ II (I prefer not to mention what the name is). He asked if we new why it was II. None of us did. He let us know that when he and his wife got married that they had about $20 in the bank, and borrowed money to buy a trailer in a trailer park. The name of the trailer they lived in was the ________ __________. So when it came time to name their boat, they only thought fitting to name it after the trailer they started out in. A fitting bookend to where they came from and where they had gotten together. I can't feel bitter about someone who worked hard to get where they are. I can only hope that someday I can achieve a small piece of what he has.

I also got to have my very own paparazzi type moment. When we docked the boat in Sister Bay, and were getting ready to head back to the bus, another boat came over, and the group on board started taking pictures of us and the boat (mainly the boat). It was cool to be able to be on the thing that everyone else was in awe of.