My Story Of a Motorboat Rental
Como, Italy

Let me share with you my experiences of getting a motorboat rental in Como, Italy. There’s a bit of humor, embarrassment, fear, pride and everything in between. Just to clear up…there are no motorboat rentals in the town of Como itself, we rented this cool boat from one of the northern towns.

First off, to begin amateurs like myself are only allowed to rent 40hp boats without a license which are the numbers any long-time boat operators would laugh at. “OMG, that is sloooow!” they say. Second, this was my very first time ever renting a boat let alone driving one.

So my best friend said we should take advantage of the beautiful weather and calm winds and rent out a motorboat. I thought it would be a brilliant idea, and was sure that he already had driving experience – but apparently he was thinking the same about me! I spent that night googling “how to drive a motorboat” and printed out the instructions which I of course forgot to take with me.

We go out to the boat rental area, fill out the paperwork, pay the required deposit and off we go. Not speaking a word of Italian at that time, a young guy brought us to the boat. When we asked him for instructions on how to use it he said with his broken english – “very easy, like drive your car!” – and then pushed the boat out and before we knew it we were already in the middle of the lake.

The waves at the northern part of the lake were actually quite strong, even though they always looked so calm from a distance. Now, I have to tell you that putting the throttle to the max was a truly thrilling experience for first-timers like ourselves with majestic mountains on both sides, and seemingly very little boat traffic.

But this James Bond adventure got its first challenge when my friend had forgotten to tell me he had actually invited other friends from the south of the lake to join us, and that now we have to go and pick them up! I tried to remember what I had googled about docking but couldn’t remember a thing!

As we approached the dock point, my friend scream “Stop! Stop! – right here!” Sure enough, our friends were waving at us, and watching me – “the supposed professional motorboat operator” – trying to stop this machine. Now everyone knows a boat doesn’t have breaks, but learning to dock is an art all by itself.

Three times I tried to dock trying to get the side of the boat just right with the descending dock but instead I ended up hitting a wall which cause the cover of the motor to fly out into the lake. I thought for sure, I’ve damaged the motor and noticed a large crowd of people gathering around the dock watching my boat going back and forth and back and forth…

I finally got it half-right by some stroke of luck, but my friends had to literally leap in, jumping a 1 meter distance to get in the boat. Luckily the motor was fine, and the cover just needed to be replaced, but I soon noticed the gas was empty.

I always thought a motorboat rental company would provide enough gas to cover the journey you’ve paid for! But it turned out that we just needed to attach another tank – so all was well.

In the end we had a great time with our motor-boat rental in Lake Como, Italy! At least there were no monsters on the lake, although it would have made a great story!

Originally posted 2012-12-01 19:42:45. Republished by Blog Post Promoter