Gary was the Commodore of our boat club in 2020.

The Commodore of this club just needs to attend the monthly meetings, go over the agenda and host the Annual Change of Watch party at the end of the year. Sounds simple huh? So, how did being Commodore during a pandemic go? All I can say is, Gary is glad it’s over.

One of the first things we did is try to find a place for the Change of Watch party as we were hosting it in December. With it being in December, and everyone having their Christmas parites, we thought we’d get a jump on things.

We figured we try some place new this year. We planned on having it at one of our members senior living places. They had a great party room and dynamite food. We met with the guy who was in charge of the party planning, set the date and the menu. Great! That wasn’t too bad, now he just had to get back to us on the cost.

Then, BAM! We find out we can’t have it on the usual day in December that we always have it on because the Cape Coral Power Squadron had scheduled a cruise that day so we better change it because not everyone will come. Ok, we try to get in contact with the guy in charge of the party room to see if we can reschedule to end of November.

Then BAM! The Corona Virus hits! What the heck is this virus? Surely it can’t be that bad, can it? No way will it last till summer time and never all the way to December, so we keep trying to get a hold of the guy in charge of the party room.

Then BAM! The next thing we know that place we were going to have the party at went into shut down mode, no one in or out. Well, we figured, that’s OK, our party is not until November, we should be OK, he’ll get back to us eventually.

In April we were in charge of a cruise for the club to go on. But guess what? BAM! We had to cancel it because the marina closed down due to the Covid virus.

We waited a few months to see how things were going and when this crazy virus would go away. Then BAM! It’s June, and things aren’t looking much better. The place we had reserved the party room at is still in lock down. We better find some place to have the party at that will have a greater likelyhood of being open.

We canceled the party room and we made reservations at the restaurant we had used in the previous years, in hopes it would be open and we could have the Change of Watch there. They did have a minumun charge there of $750, so we were keeping our fingers crossed everyone could come.

The monthly breakfast meeting we normally had were non excistant for a while because everything was closed down. Then when they resumed, only a limited number of people showed up. Gary, as Commodore, went to the meetings, I stayed home.

The Change of Watch party date was getting closer and closer. Because the minimum charge was going to be $750, we were advised we should just cancel it. So, BAM, we cancelled that dinner. First time that has happened

So the reign of Commodore Captain Gary was short and painful. It will be a year to remember and hopefully not have to relive for a long time. Oh, “Good Luck” to our new Commodore for 2021, hopefully he’ll have a better year.