Getting into Boating
After years of nose to the grindstone, we suddenly had our
last three children leave home within months of each other. The two older boys, who had been commuting to
college, both joined the Air Force, and our youngest, daughter Amy, landed a
job in Seattle and moved in with roommates.
“Wow,” we actually have money left over this month”, I
mentioned to Ron.
“It sure takes a lot less time and money to just take care
of ourselves.” He agreed.
At first the transition to being empty nesters was strange
and kind of sorrowful. But I finally
quit cooking meals to serve a large family after a couple of months, and we
used some of our new found freedom to go out to eat, and we even took a couple
of mini-vacations. We didn’t have much
practice with mindless entertainment, so it took a while for us to realize that
we didn’t actually have to work ten hours every day. We also needed to develop
some hobbies.
So when Ron announced one day, “I think we should get a
boat.” I thought it sounded like a good idea.
“I didn’t know you had boating experience.” To me, boating
kind of felt like flying, but I was happy to go boating with someone who knew
how to run a boat and read a chart.
“I don’t, but how hard can it be – and look at the places we
could go if we had a boat.”
“Well, that sounds good, I guess. What kind of a boat are you thinking about
getting? We already have a row boat and
a paddle boat for the lake.”
“No, I’m thinking a much bigger boat – something we could
use to explore Puget Sound, or Lake Washington, or even further. Maybe we could
take a boat through the Panama Canal one day.”
I had a moment or two of alarm – panic could maybe be a
better word to describe my response to this.
I knew from the 20 years we had already spent together that once Ron had
an idea to do something, the most I could do was mitigate the
consequences. So I immediately signed us
up for a safe boating course with the Power Squadron.
“We’ve sure learned a lot!” I said after the first couple of
classes.
“Most of it is pretty elementary.”
“I guess – but knowing about the channel markers, and all
the different types of boats, and general rules of the road is pretty much news
to me.”
With the class under our belt, we began to look in earnest
for a boat. We prowled all the local
marinas and boat shows and began to firm up an idea of what type of boat we
wanted.
“Most of the used boats I think we should look at are in
Florida.” Ron informed me. “Maybe we
should arrange a trip to Florida.”
“I like that idea! I’ve never been to Florida and it should
be nice there even though it’s cold and rainy here.” So I enthusiastically arranged a trip to
Sarasota, Fl.
After a week of looking at boats all the way from Tampa to
Bonita Springs, Ron began zeroing in on a huge old wood boat we found in
Sarasota.
“Do we really want the 3 bedroom 2 bath model?” I asked
skeptically as I imagined us trying to dock such a monstrous boat. In spite of my reservations, we ended up
making an offer on the big boat. Fortunately,
the complicated offer where we traded property for part of the purchase price
confused the seller and they didn’t accept our offer.
“We probably should be thinking about where we would keep a
boat.” I suggested. “We can’t haul a big
boat around on a trailer, so if we buy something big here, we would probably
need to moor it in Florida.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” Ron said. “Look at this ad!”
The ad was for a condo in Emerald Pointe where dock space was
included in the monthly homeowner’s dues.
Long story short, our boat search trip to Florida ended with us buying a
condo in Florida. The homeowner’s dues
were very high compared to a typical condo fee in Florida at the time, but
moorage fees for a large boat dwarfed the homeowner’s fees. On top of that, the demand for condos during “the
season” (January through March) far exceeded available condos.
“We can’t be here in the season anyway, I have taxes to do
in January, and I start planting the garden in February.”
“Exactly,” Ron agreed.
“We can spend September or October or November at the condo. Did you see
they have three tennis courts and two swimming pools?”
“I sure did – there wasn’t a single soul in the pool by our
condo, so it’s almost like having our own private pool.”
So we returned to Washington proud owners of a fully
furnished condo with a rental agreement for the season that would pay our condo
fees for the entire year. It looked like
our venture into boating was off to a great start.
