Touch of Class

They have a thing here called Bike Night.  The place where the bikes, or should I clarify, motor cycles, are, is within walking distance from the condo and it is exactly what it sounds like.  All the bikers come out and park their bikes along the curb for 10 blocks or so and people walk up and down the street and look at the bikes and visit the vendors.  I’ve never seen so many bike gang members in one place before.  And no one rumbled!  I think it was like a miniature Sturgis, although I’ve never been there either.  Really cool seeing all the bikes.

Here are some pictures of them.

Car/Motorcycle

There are quite a few of these down here.  Kind of cool looking, half car half bike.  Great down here for those sunny days.  I bet the gas mileage is really good too.

 these two had some nice lights.

These last three were just some of the more unusual ones I saw.  We had a lot of fun and can’t wait for them to come back.

In early February, we found another Albin in Stuart, FL to look at.  So off we went with our Broker Mike.  He has the patience of a Saint to keep driving back and forth across the state with us to look at boats.  This Albin is a 2003 and seems to be in much better shape than the other one we looked at.  But I’ll let you decide

Boat on the lift

This boat is with it’s 2nd owner.  It has been on this lift for the past 10 years

Closer view

On the hard

They just had the bottom painted a few months ago.  All in all, a pretty sweet boat.  It certainly has jumped into our number one position.

We decided, seeing as we had driven all the way over here, we might as well spend the night in Stuart and check out the town.  Look at this cool road we found that went thru the Banyan trees

 soo cool, I just had to stop and take a picture :).

Here is Gary by the Stuart Marina

Big Anchor

I’d hate to pay for the dockage for the boat that belongs to that anchor, wowzer!

It was a gloomy and windy day

Look at those waves

but we had a great time checking out the area.  So, off to home we go and I think we have a lot to discuss on the way home.

Whoops.  The Editor of this column didn’t catch my typing error about the SeaRay.  It isn’t an outboard that was on the boat, it was an IO (inboard/outboard).  An inboard is actually preferable over an IO down here.  I think I will have to fire my Editor and find someone new :).

We are working with a Broker by the name of Mike to help us find a boat.  Here is a little trivia about Mike’s vehicle.  He drives a 2003 avalanche.

2003 avalanche

You’ll never guess how many miles he has on it.  Over 500,000!  Holy Crap!

So, back to the important thing, finding us a new boat :).   Gary decided to finally take me to see one of the boats on his list, an Albin.  So we went and looked at this 2002 28 foot Albin.  This was on a lift in someone’s back yard.

Boat on lift

As you can see by the water, it was really windy that day.  Even the lift was rocking a little while we were on it.  But back to the boat.  It had a black hull, with an enclosed driving station

Canvas on the back

Which would come in handy if it is cold or hot.  The boat has air conditioning so we could close off the area and crank on the air :).

It also had a raised engine compartment with a cushion on it for additional seating

Engine box with cover

Inside it had a nice dinette that converts into a bed

Nice dinette

Plus a 2nd area that could be another birth or used just for storage, like maybe a cute kitty’s litter box?

2nd Birth

This boat had lots of pluses.  Lots of storage, nice walk around deck, good canvas, a diesel engine but it had some flaws too.

Needs a little paint

Dirt

That black square….that is dirt and mud.  So, how well did they clean the rest of the boat?

I think we’ll pass on this one but definitely like what the Albin’s have to offer.  I think we’ll have to see what else is out there.

When we first got married we had a 24 foot SeaRay Weekender.  We wished that we could afford the 28 foot Sundancer….38 years later, here we are :).

This one was one we looked at, again, just to see the layout.  The boat was really cheap but in really tough condition.  Most of these pictures are from Yachtworld and are from a sister boat

Boat

Cockpit

Colleen’s Seat

Cabin

This boat not only had a V-birth but it had a tuck under birth that could sleep 2 people.  This one had some nice features, enough room for the kitty litter but has gas engines with outboards.   With a 9.5 foot beam it would fit in the slip.

Sooooo, we’ll keep this one on the short list, even if it is a SeaRay ;).

And the search continues….

So, the Shamrock boat is in our top 5 list. It only has a beam (that’s width for you landlubbers 😉 ) of 8 feet, so it would fit on our lift nicely.  Our broker that we are working with told us we wouldn’t want one cause they are a “wet” boat, what ever that means.  But we decided to look at one that was 6 blocks from our house just to get a feel for what the boat was like.  Here is the boat

Boat on their lift

So, keeping in mind we are just looking at the boat for how it would work for us, we saw it had a nice cockpit

Cock pit

A V-birth we could sleep in

V-birth

and a head you step down into

Head

Anyone see that video about the squatty potty.  Well you wouldn’t have to worry about getting one of those with this toilet.  If you sat down on the head I am sure you knees would be scrunched up by your head.  Based on that fact alone, we decided the boat wasn’t for us :).

So, on to the next.

I know, it’s a Bayliner, but it was loaded!

And it came with a trailer

Bow

Cockpit seat

Colleen’s chair

Stairs to cabin

Cabin

Did I mention it was loaded?  Radar, GPS, auto pilot, Flo Scan (which measures your fuel consumption), a beefed up lower unit.  But all in all, it had some water damage on the cushions in the V-Birth (if you can call it a V-birth, it was pretty short, even for me), a leak somewhere, as there was some wet carpet and a cardboard box that was soaked.  Plus the main reason, it was only a 24 foot.  So, we’ll keep this one in mind but on to the next.

We have been looking at boats trying to find the new Touch of Class.  Here is one we looked at.  Anybody that is old school will appreciate this one

Boat

Of course this is the way we saw it

Boat in Shed at Stuart, FL

This is a 1979 Fairchild Scout.  It is 30 feet long and has 1 diesel engine.  It is fashioned after a 30’s looking boat but it is all fiberglass with lots of brass on it.  The windows are mahogany,

Windows

as is all the wood in the boat. Here are some more pictures

Stern

Bow

Cockpit

Cabin

And the most important part

The Engine

which as you can see is clean as a whistle :).  Some of the problems with the boat are, there are no railing around the bow which means there is no way Jose I am going out there.  There is no windless either which means Gary would have to Strong Arm the anchor up.  Plus there is no refridgerator, no air, a pump handle for the faucet and the toilet looks like this

Toilet, ummm Yummy!

There is also no swim platform so if one of us fell over board, good luck getting us back up, specially graceful me ;).  Plus, it is much to heavy for our slip not to mention that it is 37 years old and they only made 12 of them.  Soooooo….we are thinking about it cause it is a very cool boat in near perfect condition but lets see what else is out there.

Yes, we are still alive.  We spent the holidays in Minnesota, luckily the snow and bad weather Gods took pity on us and it barely snowed at all while we were there.  We had a great time visiting family and friends.

Our van was getting used to the warm weather and didn’t like this at all!

Brrr, poor van

Once we got back down here, we found this young man on the beach….

Florida Snowman

Don’t you wish you could build one of these?

The weather down here has been unusually wet and cold for this time of year.  Of course we all know cold is a relative term.  Cold for here, meaning Super Duper Wonderful if you live up North :).  We have had a few storms that blew in right at high tide, it caused the water in our canal to raise quite a bit

The cement pad to our docks

This is what it looked like before the storm

Dock at normal water levels

Our neighbors across the canal almost had water in their yard

Start building the Ark!

And then someone took this picture in Tampa

Water spout in Tampa Bay

That is really cool, I would have loved to see that up close ;).

Of course after the storm comes the clear night and the full moon

Shine on Moon

While we wait out the storms, we are doing a little spiffing up of the condo.  While we were up in Minnesota we decided to get the pipes replaced, a suggestion of our home inspector.  It is kind of weird, down here the water is so soft that it eats away the copper piping causing it to pit and then leak.  All of the condos in our 4 condo unit had their pipes replaced within the past few months. Of course, after they replaced our pipes, there were lots of patches we had to paint over.  The way they find the pipes is they cut a hole in the wall, if the pipes are not there, they cut another hole in the wall, if they are not there, they cut another hole in the wall.  So when I say there are lots of patches, I’m not kidding :).

Hallway

In the dining room

Master Bedroom

Behind fridge

I’ve been cracking the whip and making Gary paint.  We started with the VIP bedroom as we will be having family visit soon.  Here it is before

That table is made out of cardboard!

Love the pictures

And after

Ooooh, pretty 😉

We have been able to get out and about when I am not whip cracking and we found our old Pearson at Snookbite Marina

Stern

Starboard

Bow

Port

I don’t think she does much traveling anymore :(.

But while we were out Gary found a new friend

Cubby the Bear

Gary’s new friend.  We think he would look really nice at BearTrax, Cubby not Gary ;).  Next we found this PODS in the parking lot of a strip mall

Whoops!

I can hear the conversation. “Where’s my POD?”  “Well, we delivered it to the address on the shipping label”  “Harry, where did you deliver the Jones POD?”  “We dropped it at the address on the shipping label”  Two weeks later they finally find the POD.  Whoops!  Sorry!

So, that is what we have been up to for the past month or so.  We are both starting to have boating withdrawals.  As Gary searches the internet, we’ll keep you updated on our search for the new Touch of Class.

Stay warm!

For those of you that don’t put up lights or decorations to celebrate Christmas, here are some we found up north

Those were at my brother’s store called Beartrax.  The lights are even synchronized with music.  Very impressive.

This goes up a driveway

I recognize a few of those Santa Bears

I wonder how much their monthly charge is?

Those were from a couple of houses all on the same corner.  Boy, they go all out up here ;).

Now doesn’t that put you into the Christmas spirit?

We hope your shopping days are fruitful but short and you are able to enjoy what Christmas is really all about, being with family and celebrating Christ’s birth.

Merry Christmas ya’ll!

My much older brother, of a year and half, planned on joining us in November to help us move the boat from Chattanooga to Columbus, MS, where we were going to leave it for November and December.  Then, whoops, we bought the condo. So we figured, well, he is still flying into Chattanooga, we could take the boat trip up the upper Tennessee river a little later than we planned and take my brother with us.  That would make up for not driving the boat to Columbus right?  So his trip woudn’t be for nothing and he’d still get a boat ride.  Well best laid plans……so after the boat sold so quickly he had to switch his plane ticket to Fort Myers.  Where there is no boat and a condo that needs some work.  Oh well, at least the weather will be nice and he’ll be able to see a lot of this

Pretty trees

and none of that 

We figured he wouldn’t mind the extra money it cost him to switch his air fare ;).

But the first thing we did was put him to work :).  We

Installed a new threshold

got new door knobs

and installed them

installed a new garbage disposal

a new hall light

new smoke detector

yup, no furnace in this place, don’t need the carbon monoxide detector :), and yes, the detector detects all kinds of smoke Mr. Peterson.

toilet guts

They even fixed the high squealing toilet that apparently only I could hear :), plus they tore down the nasty cupboards that were in the outside laundry room that were 38 years old and looked every bit of those years.  They were very busy boys so I decided to give them a break and take them out to breakfast one morning.  We went to the Tiki Bar at the Boathouse.  It was right on the ICW (Inter Coastal Waterway) so we could watch the boats go by 

Ok, so this one was anchored, but beggars can’t be choosers :).  It’s a boat isn’t it?

Another day we went to the Ford and Edison Winter Estates.  It was a pretty cool place.

Pool

Look at the diving boards, two of them.  I hate to say it but it didn’t look deep enough for one of them let alone two.  Maybe that is how they got rid of their unwanted guests.  Told them to take a little dip in the pool, then threw their dead bodies off the pier

Their own private pier

You can’t tell now but it was a 1500 foot pier! You could tie 30 Navigators up to this dock.

They also had some really cool trees here

Kapok Tree

They also had some

Banyan Tree

The older Banyan tree have “prop”roots that drop from the branches and grow into thick trucks.  You can hardly tell which truck is the original one.  The estate had a lot of these types of trees on it.  The were also growing orchids

Growing Orchid

which they apparently start by attaching them to some sort of tree.  The place had a huge grounds and there were quite a few people there tending to the trees, the grass and the plants.  They even have their own green house.

The property also had a home for each of the Ford and Edison families.  Here are some pictures inside one of them

Set up for Christmas

Maids room, pretty nice

Secretary’s room

Guest room, I’ll take it 🙂

They had nice walk around porches on both houses

And Ford/Edison invented other things besides

Flathead V-8 1937

Ford car

He invented things like

A waffle iron

A Phonograph

With cool speakers!

And look at this Jute Box

I wish we had a little more time to spend there.

To make up for the short day at the Ford/Edison Estates we took my brother to Fort Myers beach

Fort Myers Beach

Sun bathers

See all the pretty sun bathers?  Notice they are all old people?  The youngins don’t show up till Spring Break.  Nothing to see here people, move on ;).

While we were there we ran into a couple of Pirates.

Ouuuh, that is one sexy pirate

And this must be her handsome and sexy 1st Mate

Another day we drove, yes by car not by boat, down to Naples.  We went to a place called Tin City.

Cute Croc and couple of land lubbers

Kind of southern version of downtown Stillwater, so we felt right at home.  Lots of shops to spend your money at.

Than a friend was nice enough to invite us out on their boat

Waiting for the boat ride

The weather and company were perfect!

But we eventually had to make our trek up north to celebrate our Grandson’s 2nd Birthday.  Wow!  It is hard to believe he is 2 already, time flies, doesn’t it?

Well, we leave you with that final note.  We land lubbers from the Touch of Class wish you all a Merry Christmas and a safe and healthy 2016.

Stay tuned as we start our search for the new boat!