Buying a boat is exciting, terrifying, and expensive. The excitement comes from the trip you’ll plan, the terrifying part is the trips you’ll plan, and the expense is everything in between and then some. I don’t remember the first time I heard the term “boat buck” but back when we bought Michelle one boat buck was a $100 bill. Nowadays, I think a boat buck is equal to $1,000. After the purchase, we joined the 90-day yacht club. That’s when you buy a boat and take it out of the country for 90 days for international documentation, and tax reasons. I’m not sure if the 90 Yacht club is still around, but for the first 90 days we owned her, Michelle was in Ensenada Mexico. We needed that time to actually try to find a reasonable marina in Southern California. If there wasn’t a waiting list, that was anywhere from 2 -10 years, then they charged a boat load. We finally found a reasonable Marina in Ventura. A little farther north than we would have liked, but a good marina, nonetheless.
We had a lot of fun, for the first couple of years, going on little voyages, and working hard to maintain her both mechanically and cosmetically. We participated in the Christmas boat parade and took out friends whenever we could escape the mountains for the sea. I can also attest to… you can make 19 trips to Catalina Island before getting bored with it.
On one trip to Catalina, we had Becky and Rich with us. We thought we’d be real cute and pull into the harbor wearing those glasses that come with fuzzy eyebrows and a mustache. We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves laughing and carrying on, (acting like scallywags) until the harbor master came alongside to collect the mooring fees, and he had glasses with big fuzzy eyebrows and a big ole’ mustache. We thought it was a whole lot funnier than he did. Oops. There are dozens of little funny stories like that and as I think and remember them, they’ll get included, but for now, we will move on.
As we met new boaters at the marina, we met some folks who talked about “cruising” Mexico every season, basically September through May. They shared stories about planning, where to stop, and where not to stop. It didn’t take long when Mike decided he wanted to “go cruising” and not long after that, it became moving the boat to Texas, via the Panama Canal. There is a lot more to how that came about, but that’s the cliff Note version.