This past December we were fed up with the cold and many months of waiting. Our house hadn’t yet sold and our thought process at the time was that we couldn’t start looking for a boat until we had an offer on the house. So with nothing else to do, we planned a camping trip around the Florida peninsula with an end point of New Orleans. As we made our way down and around, weather started looking unfavorable. At the last minute, we decided to turn around in Tampa and stay south where it was warm (we were tent camping after all).
We stayed at a hotel in Naples for a night to rest then we headed to the KOA in Davie to spend the second week of our two week vacation. While in Naples I was perusing YouTube and saw a video from a broker we follow that was showcasing the exact boat we wanted. A quick email was sent to the broker and we were able to check out the boat within a couple of days. She looked great – everything we had been dreaming about – but we weren’t ready to buy a boat. We just wanted a little look in person to be sure it was the right model for us. After some serious conversation (and a few beers), we decided to go for it. We didn’t have time to wait with the twins heading off to college in another year. We wanted to proceed with this boat.
After completing our camping trip and returning home, we were back down in Fort Lauderdale two weeks later for the survey. As the survey started to unfold, it became clear that this boat needed a little more than what we were prepared to do to get her to our desired state. There was a bit of sadness/frustration that she wasn’t the one for us, and we didn’t know when another acceptable boat would show up on the market. While we spent money for travel and survey that didn’t yield us a boat, we expected this. We were just hoping we got lucky the first time around. Now the search was on!