I have always found cameras a personal thing, what suits one person does not another. My advice is work out how much you can afford, then go into a large reputable dealer and ask to try different cameras until you find one that you feel comfortable with. Remember to allow for a decent size memory card as well as the one supplied is usually very small, with model boats on ponds you will need a long optical lens to grab the boat in detail so get one with a large number of optical stops such as the Panasonic with 10 optical stops. The magazine What Camera will give you a relative honest breakdown of the cameras for sale, a 5 meg plus system will give a decent A4 size picture upwards.
Myself I have a digital SLR, but my wife often does better pics with her Olympus 7.1 Miu compact, as taking a good photo requires a good eye and being able to see and frame the pic, not how expensive or how many megs it has or make.