Maybe We Really Are Going Cruising Again
30 March 2015
Jill
Three years is a long time to take a break from cruising. We've been not cruising longer than we were cruising. And after all this time starting again doesn't seem very real. This visit to the boat made it seem like it might actually happen.
We came down specifically to attend the Southwest International in the Water Boat Show. I had made a list of things we needed, some big and some small, with the best price I could find for the item on-line. List in hand we set out for the show the first day it was held. If you were shopping for a new or used boat there were quite a few to see, but there weren't many boat supply vendors. I was hoping for something like the Toronto Boat Show, where all the latest gadgets are to be found. We bought nothing at the boat show. But we did talk to a boat yard where we'll be taking the boat for bottom paint and some other work, so it wasn't a total loss.
On the way back Bud stopped at West Marine to pick up a quart of varnish. He told me they had a nice looking Hypalon Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) on sale. Hypalon is a material like the PVC of our old dinghy, but it's UV resistant, so much better for the tropics. We didn't do anything about it as we'd already left Matey for over 5 hours in the boat, a lot longer than we'd left him before (he was fine, but happy to see us).
The next day we returned (Matey was with us) and checked it out. We wanted a dinghy that was deeper than ours, so our cargo wouldn't get wet when we were going through choppy water in harbors. We'd seen some in the Bahamas like that. AB was one brand; I'd looked that up on line and the cheapest I could find one was $4200. So we penciled that in our back-to-cruising budget. The West Marine dinghy had all of the features we wanted and more and was on sale for $3100. And at that price we would earn $120 in coupons for future purchases, which we are sure to make. Since only the floor model was on sale we bought it that day.
After a lot of hassle and help from a friend we managed to get it back to the marina the following day, and Matey and I rowed it around the marina to our slip. It rowed nicely, and Matey was his usual calm, accepting self and handled the experience with aplomb. We'll have to register it in Florida and won't use it until we leave. We hated to store it out in the sun for the summer, but couldn't pass up the deal. Happily, we sold our old dingy to a new marina tenant (and new friend) and he put it on the bow of his Sea Ray 370. Our new dinghy came with a carry bag. So we deflated the tubes, loaded it in the bag and strapped it to our bow. I put a picture of it on the bow in the gallery.
Getting a major item on our cruising list helps put me back in cruising mode. Getting it for $1220 under budget has us smiling.