Boat operator card

The "Ice Out" date contest is in full swing over on the Rice Lake Today website. General concensus among the guessers is that it will happen very late in March or in early April. With that in mind, we need to get hopping on buying a boat and obtaining our operator cards.

An operator card is sort of like a driver's license, except for a boat, with the exception that an operator's card is valid for life and cannot be revoked.

However, much like a driver's license for a car, you still need to pay and take a written test. Strangely, there is no "practical" test required. Based on these criteria, SpongeBob would've passed Mrs. Puff's class years ago.

Depending upon which website you use to apply for the test, it can cost you anywhere from $25 to $50 for the exam. (I'll give you two guesses which site The Captain o'Cheap chose.)  I find that the study materials at the pricier site are better quality.

Once you pay the Exam fee, you can retake the exam as many times as you need to until you pass; but you can only take the test once in a 24-hour period.

You need a test administrator - rather like a witness - who is above the age of majority and is not a family member. The test site emails your 36-question multiple-choice electronic test to your administrator. The administrator has to ensure that you:
- Don't talk
- Don't use books/papers/cheat sheets
- Hand in your test to the administrator before you leave

So it's pretty much like every test you've ever taken since Grade 1 onwards.

That administrator has to provide you with a nice private spot (under their control) to take the test, but Agents of Transport Canada (hereafter referred to as Agents of Doom because it's much more exciting) have to be allowed in. The nice private spot (if it's in a commercial venue, or sports facility) needs to have walls to keep the riff-raff away from you and to keep you from seeing the riff-raff or, really, anything else.

If you cheat - you're out. And the administrator can only oversee 20 test takers at a time. No more. Oh, and they have to be able to show the Agents of Doom that they are aware of, and followed, the "test protocol" instructions, if need be.

That's about it!

What have I learned so far? That I am incapable of typing adminstrator without leaving out the second "i". Every. Single. Time.