Then came the clanger: The cranes at Raffles Marina, which lift the boats off their dry-berth racks and set them on the water, were on the blink.
Plan B made on the fly: Go with all our food and drinks to East Coast Park instead.
We cussed about the berthing fees the marina charges. Shouldn't the marina give us a discount off this month's bill? It's not as if we get them to launch the boat every weekend; we go out, at most, twice a month. But this weekend - after we had woken up earlier than we would have liked to buy supplies for the supposed trip - the crane has to be out of commission.
Raffles Marina should not have this happening again. This is the second time it's happened on a day when we have planned an outing. See account of previous time here, when we also ended up at the East Coast Park. That was July 2016, less than a year ago. Who knows how many other times the crane has broken down on weekends we weren't going out?
Today, we were just family - C, A, J2 and R. What if we had asked guests along? There would be so much disappointment and apologies.
An aside: We got a call last week from the marina, asking us whether we were planning to go out; they had called to let us know that the crane was out of order then. It just so happened we weren't planning a trip that day.
But so has the crane been broken since then? Or was it out of order then, fixed and then went out of order again this Saturday morning (May 20)??
Anyway, we parked near the Sailing Centre and broke open our beers and wine there. It was a pleasant enough afternoon, I suppose, but an outing on the boat would have been far better.
