A Brand New Boat

A new riverboat, The Pride and Joy II, has arrived to replace the boat which caught fire on Christmas Day. Operated by Capital Cruises, this new boat offers lunch and dinner cruises on Lady Bird Lake. A separate company, Lone Star Riverboat Cruises, operates the other big riverboat, The Lone Star. Both companies also launch smaller boats for nightly bat-watching tours.

When I walked over to take some pictures of The Pride and Joy II last week, the crew invited me on board. They are generally pleased with the new vessel and especially like the larger windows which have real glass instead of plastic. The upper deck is bigger too. When the headlights are on at night, I think this new riverboat looks like a school bus floating downstream.

I asked the captain about maneuvering the boat, since Lady Bird Lake can get quite crowded on weekends. He said that sometimes the people on water bikes and paddleboards come right up alongside the boat, which isn’t too smart since he can’t stop quickly. He also worries about rowers who are sitting backwards in their sculls and don’t always look around to see where they are headed. So he’s glad that the horn on The Pride and Joy II is louder than the one on their previous boat.

The crew asked me to include this bit of pirate talk in my blog entry, so here you go guys…

YARRR!

Austin Downtown Diary

Austin Downtown Diary

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