We were away from City Dogs for a couple days taking a break from sailing around Roatan at our friend's amazing house and when we returned ready to tackle a tight little list of issues we need to address before our next round of charters, we found our dinghy like this.
At first, we were really, really confused, wondering how the hell it happened, thinking everything from a freak accident to someone slashing it open with a knife. It wasn't until we'd calmed down a bit that we found a note that summed things up pretty well.
First of all, we're super psyched that he left a note, it's more than a lot of people would do under similar circumstances. We're very lucky that he's mostly being a stand-up guy and taking responsibility for the "accident". We didn't get much more of an explanation than he wasn't paying attention and he rammed into our boat.
It doesn't look like much in the photo above, but the boat that rammed ours is on the left side of the dock. It's a big boat compared to our little inflatable dinghy (a 10'9" West Marine fiberglass bottom one we bought new just a little over a year ago after the dinghy that came with our boat was destroyed in hurricane Irma). In some ways, I suppose we're lucky the dinghy was lifted up on our davits, otherwise he could have put a big hole in the stern of City Dogs instead. It's terrifying to think how close we came to having our home, our office, our everything holed simply because someone behind the tiller wasn't paying attention. It's a good reminder of the awesome power that we hold in our hands every time we go out.
After we cajoled the dinghy repair guy into coming out from Los Fuertes to the marina, he told us due to where the puncture was, it was iffy if his repairs would even work. He wouldn't guarantee anything and when pressed, admitted that if it was his choice between repairing it or replacing it, he would get a new one. So that's what we decided on doing, because our dinghy is like our car on the water, we need it for everything and it's something we need to be able to rely on. Thankfully the guy who destroyed it is willing to pay for a new one, and one of our amazing friends is loaning us his dinghy until our new one gets delivered! People really are amazing.
And we have to say thanks to the Parrot Tree security guards and our neighbors who came out of nowhere to help us get the engine off and helped us get the old dinghy up out of the water. It truly was a team effort. It'll take a couple weeks for the new dinghy to get shipped to Miami, then get put on a cargo ship to Roatan. Shipping and duties weren't cheap, but thankfully the guy who destroyed our dinghy was (with a little behind the scenes negotiation) willing to pay for shipping, tax, and all of the import duties and fees. Thankfully he was willing to take full responsibility for his actions. It's quite honestly more than we could have hoped for.
Anyway, if you have any ideas on what we should call the new dinghy, drop us an email, hit us up in the comments, or leave us a note on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. We never settled on a name for the dead dinghy and we're thinking giving the new one a name might improve her chances of surviving more than a year.