OK. It’s been 15 years in the making, but I think I’m ready to buy a boat. Maybe I’m crazy considering gas and diesel are going off the charts price per gallon-wise, but the other side of the coin is the fact that it just makes sense for me considering I spend way too much time in the house. I figure this will get me to do some traveling and make life a little more bearable. I’ve done nothing but work like a dog my whole life and I’m not getting any younger. If I don’t do this, I’ll wake up one day and realise I’ve pissed my life away “living to work” rather than “working to live”.
I know it’s a crazy investment considering a boat is a money pit, but the way I look at it, I own an old house and if that isn’t a money pit, I don’t know what is! So this shouldn’t be much worse.. (or will it?).
It was the day before the 4th of July and my fiancee and I were sitting around deciding what to do for the weekend and jetskiing was something that came to mind. So.. We went to the local Jetski dealer with the hopes of driving away with a trailer and 2 jetskis. Needless to say, it didn’t happen. It seemed to be a great idea at the time, but after talking with the guy at the dealership, we realized we needed a trailer, boat licensing, insurance, etc.; in other words, it wasn’t happening as an impulse purchase. So, I got to thinking. If I’m going to spend that much time prepping for something, we might as well buy a boat. We have friends with boats and they all seem to love them (and hate them), but it seemed like a good “possibility”. So.. it was off to the local marina.
We get to the marina 10 minutes later and start looking around. I remember why I loved boats again. Seeing people sitting around puttering about on their boats. Everyone’s friendly, the creature comforts, etc. It just seemed like a low-stress situation. We had decided we were going to buy a 25-30 footer. Something for the weekends. They’re relatively affordable, easy to drive, and not much more to maintain in comparison to an expensive sports car. I figure nothing could possibly cost more than my sports car maintenance-wise. (Over 4 years, I spent about 200K restoring and paying off the car, so I definitely know a boat couldn’t possibly be more than that!) The car, though, is a different story for another time.
My fiancee and I decided a boat would be a reasonable “fun” investment. So, we started to think about how we would use the boat. While we’re not boat around the lake every weekend people, we decided we would use the boat to go on weekend trips ~200 miles away or closer. Basically, spend the weekends on a boat actually traveling to ports close by; like Philadelphia, Newport, Fire Island, the Hamptons, etc.. You get the idea. Short Jaunts. We’d stay overnight in the boat at various marinas and explore the ports of call during the day. I could keep an office on the boat so I would never be too far from work (if need be) and we could save money on airline tickets and lodging. Basically, allowing us to “travel” on a more frequent basis.
We decided we’d want to take the boat to Florida and possibly the Carribean. We could bring the dogs on our little jaunts. It’d be fun.
Now, after talking to various people, we realize that a 25-30 footer wouldn’t allow us the comfort we would need in the open seas to do this and the minimum was really a 40-50 footer (for the longer voyages). A little bit of googling and we realise this is still within our means (although we would finance it). and so, our adventure into the world of boating begins.. We’re looking for that perfect boat and plan on making a purchase in January-February of this year. I figure this would be a good story to document and hopefully, our experiences will help others in a similar situation. It would serve as a good point of reference. A place to start for others who are interested in possibly making boating a relatively frequent activity in their lives.
After all, it’s all about the sharing of knowledge. More to come as I continue down this road.