Notes

I'll start from the beginning. Monday morning at 8:30am we left my coworkers apartment with 9 other friends headed for Wisconsin. The drive up went fine and we arrived at around 10am. First thing we did was head to Piggly Wiggly to pick up some snacks, beer, and mixers. Idk why I'm going into this much detail, lol, I'll skip right to the important part. We get to the boat rental place and all they need before they hand us the keys is the payment. Being the only person on the trip with boating experience, I was delegated as the captain (driver) and given the keys. We cast off and pull away from the dock. I drive not more than 40 feet away from the rental place when a police boat, yes a boat that says "Police" on the side and has lights/siren on it, pulls up to us and asks what year I was born and if I have a license to operate a boat. They were literally sitting there waiting for people to "pull over" (idk what the boating term for that is)

I tell them the truth and they ask me to turn around and head back to the tiny marina where we took off from. They pulled me aside and said that a new law was passed and anyone born on or after January 1st 1989 needs to have taken and passed a boater safety course. Remember that when we were originally renting the boat, we were never asked or prompted about a license or our age. I proceeded to tell the officer this information, but he acts like its not his problem and writes me a ticket for $155, and a court date for August 24th. After this went down, the worker at the rental place said that this is the only time in the 4 years they were working there that this has happened. I feel really bad because I broke the law, however everyone I have shared this with including my mother has said that there was no way for me to know and that some blame should fall upon the rental company. The people I was on the boat with all volunteered money to essentially completely pay for the ticket on my behalf, yet I am still going to go to that court appearance and fight the ticket on the grounds that I was unaware of the law and was officially allowed to drive the boat by the marina without any vetting process. I am also in the process of getting my boating license to hopefully show the judge that I have since made an effort to correct my mistake and that it really was just an innocent mistake. So there, that is my big story...not super interesting. I feel like a little kid still for getting the ticket, but I also somehow feel like the way in which I am handling the situation is in an adult fashion. j