A Pirate Looks at 45

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Time on the Water

We sailed from the port of indecision

Young and wild with oh so much to learn

The days turned into years

as we tried to fool our fears

but to the port of indecision I returned.

A true Parrot head, I find myself quoting Jimmy Buffett again, as Aric approaches his mid-life stage [with no crisis in sight]. Like a true Jimmy Buffett journey, I am reminded of how far Aric and I have come in our marriage and life together.

“I broke out of the grip of Catholicism and made it through adolescence without killing myself in a car. I flunked out of college. I learned to play the guitar, lived on the beach, lived in the French Quarter, finally got laid, and didn't go to Vietnam. I got back into school, started a band, got a job on Bourbon Street, graduated from college, flunked my draft physical, broke up my band, and went out on the road solo. I signed a record deal, got married, moved to Nashville, had my guitars stolen, bought a Mercedes, worked at Billboard magazine, put out my first album, went broke…. wrecked the Mercedes, got divorced, and moved to Key West. I sang and worked on a fishing boat, went totally crazy, did a lot of dope, met the right girl, made another record, had a hit, bought a boat, and sailed away to the Caribbean.

~ Jimmy Buffett, “A Pirate Looks at Fifty”.

So starts the adventure of Aric’s next stage of manhood – not with getting divorced (thank God) or breaking any more bones (yet) - but with the arrival of his new and long awaited “mid-life celebration”. No, it’s not a red Viper, but rather a Viper red Mastercraft X80 ski boat. 28.5 foot - twin inboard 750 HP engines (insert loud pirate roar here).

It missed the scheduled cargo ship departure in Los Angeles port with an ETA of today, so unfortunately he won’t have it for his birthday. The boat is now scheduled to arrive February 2. That works out well because we need the extra time to get through the whole Dubai document shuffle.

This takes the record for approvals. It’s one thing to get a good deal on a boat in California – and another altogether to get the darn thing in to Dubai and registered properly. Every official state and municipal government agency on this and the other side of the world has been involved. The sheer number of documents has wiped out another acre of the rain forest.

Then of course there are the stamps. One from the UAE Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles on the invoice and title; one from the Dubai Free Zone on the “no-objection” letter Aric had to have (by the way, the Sheikh does not object to us bringing a boat in – most likely because it is no competition to his 100 foot yacht already parked in the Marina); then approval of the Chamber of Commerce stamp, by the US consulate in Dubai, followed by a stamp to approve that stamp, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For good measure, let’s throw in a stamp from the Dubai Embassy in Washington DC.

Once those stamps are secured, we can take all the documents to the Coast Guard here and get another stamp to get the boat officially registered; along with a small unknown sum (?) in import duty. We figure we will be ready to set sail and wakeboard sometime in March! A pirate without his vessel is like a fish out of water and I watch Aric grow more and more restless the more red tape we encounter. We all look forward to weekends on the new toy, which comes equipped with wakeboards, vests, skis and assorted accessories which the dealer could hide onboard.

Happy Birthday Aric!!