I use the photos I have handy to create the first version of my boat card.
As any Looper can tell you, a “boat card” is a must-have for anyone cruising the Loop. A cross between a calling card and a business card, it’s the thing you hand off to other boaters you meet in your travels. It normally includes a photo of either your boat or yourself (or both), your name(s), your boat name, your hailing port, and some contact information. A good boat card will be either blank on back or will have a form on the back for taking notes, like where you met and what you talked about. Captain John, who I cruised with on the ICW this past spring, had excellent boat cards with that form on back and he kept track of everyone he met by making notes on the backs of the cards he collected.
I’ve been itching to make my own boat cards but have had a problem: I didn’t have a good photo of my boat. That changed a week ago when I was docked at Jarrell Cove State Park on Harstine Island on Puget Sound. I had one side of the long dock all to myself in the morning, when fog blanketed the little inlet and marina. I snapped a few photos, not thinking much about it at the time. But when I started going through photos to create my boat card, I found one that was perfect, with my boat off center and a foggy area perfect for setting text on.
Morning in the fog at Jarrell Cove State Park.
My first stab at a boat card. The next version will have the boat’s name on it (instead of the WN number), the new bimini top over the command bridge, and no messy lines on deck. But this will have to do until then.
I fired up my page layout software of choice — Affinity Publisher — and brought up a template for a business card sized document. A few minutes later, I had my first boat card designed and ready to be printed. Not perfect, but good enough — until I could get a better photo, possibly with my drone.
Now the next trick: getting them printed before I hit the Loop next week. Wish me luck!
