Sep 21/22 - busy two days

Let's see ... dermatologist appointment, installed a new master bath door, went for a bike ride, bought a boat ...

Yes, the door is in. It was not really that much trouble shimming it into place, being a pre-hung door. I'm now patching the drywall before putting on the trim. It's primed, and will need to be painted, but it's probably best to wait until after they do the bathroom work which will occur around U.S. Thanksgiving.

Before doing the door, however, I had my Dr's appointment on Monday. There were no issues and I can go back in another two years. I had quite a parade of people as I sat their in my underwear. The check-in lady had said that if it was ok with me, a 4th year medical student would accompany the doctor. I said that was ok. The medical student came in first and she checked me over. She then went and got the doctor -- who Sandy has never met -- who also checked me over, with the nurse practitioner in tow. I never removed my shoes or my underwear. I guess, for me, they didn't expect to find anything in those areas. When Sandy went in, on the other hand, the nurse practitioner even checked between her toes.

On the way back from the Dr I stopped at Bluewater Boats to tell Monica, the sales lady, what my bottom line was with the new 2006 on their showroom floor. I brought along a NADA printout to backup my valuation of the boat. As I put it -- this is what the boat is worth to me once I drive it off the lot (well, pull it off the lot), it's an interesting thing that it's a new boat, but it won't be once I sign any papers. I left the shoe on her foot, so to speak -- if you're interested, give me a call ... make ME an offer.

Before going to the Dr I had placed a call to two boat brokers who had similar vintage boats to sell -- one a 2003 and one a 2004. I caught up with one before the appointment and one after, getting details on condition etc. of those boats. It was time to let this settle for 24 hours.

Back home, I had lunch and attacked the door. I removed the 2x4's across the top and side of the door, installed new ones, shimmed the door frame & door into place and voila, we have a door albeit without a door handle and without trim on the sides. A voyeur would have lots of places to peek. I'll pick up some trim today at the hardware store -- they stock this profile trim already primed -- some baseboard if I need it and Sandy will pickup a door handle at Home Depot to match the ones on the French doors leading into the den. In time I'll replace the other three doors in the place -- both bedroom doors and the guest bath -- and they'll get matching door handles.

The day was done, except for two episodes of SG1 and except for Mangrove Snapper for dinner. By the way, wine with pre and with dinner goes without saying. I'm working my way through the wine that I brought down from the cottage. Sandy is helping me, reducing the lifespan of my limited red wine supply. I'll have to go shopping soon. It won't last.

Yesterday I went for a bike ride, following roughly the same route as a couple of days before. The wind was from the NNE only this time it was really from the NNE. That meant that on the way home I didn't have as much breeze in my face as the prior time and whenever I slowed down sweat ran into my eyes. Luckily I had a hankie.

Oh -- one more thing -- on Monday the new monitor arrived that I've bought for up north. It's a Samsung widescreen. I had initially placed it in front of the old Viewsonic flatscreen CRT that I'd bought for Jeffrey, many moons ago, but this screen is so big that I could not sit that close to it without constantly swiveling my head to see it. I'm tempted to purchase another for down here since I like matching setups. In the meantime, I'm using it just to ensure that it has had some break-in period before carting it up north.

After the bike ride I had lunch. Since I had left around 7am I was back before noon. It was time to do something about the boat. I called Fred at the 2004 dealer to ask a couple of questions and while I was talking to him a name popped up on the telephone screen (call waiting) -- Petersohn. That name didn't click at first -- I let it go to voicemail -- but it was Monica. I would have let it go to voicemail anyway.

After talking to Fred, I called Monica back -- telling Sandy as I did so that she was likely to be coming back with "no can do". Well, I was surprised. She made me an offer that was essentially the NADA value + the value of extras that I hadn't really considered. The biggest extra was the trailer, not included in the NADA value, which is a dual axle aluminum trailer with brakes. It's an expensive item. She yammered on for a while on the phone ... doesn't know me well enough that trying to sell me on the value of doing business locally, a new boat vs old, yadda yadda yadda, was just background noise. I got off the phone, Sandy and I talked about it, and I called Monica back with a counter offer -- not trying to reduce their cash but trying to get some other items thrown in -- GPS/Dept Finder, VHF radio, boat cover -- all essentials -- expecting that they can get them cheaper than I can.

After a bit Monica called back with another counter -- boat cover, yes; GPS different model than I'd been looking at; hand-held VHF -- all for some more money. After the call I did some more research and got more and more irritated. Essentially all she was doing was providing the add-ons at their cost, not budging on the offered price. I paced up and down, getting more irritated, called Monica back and told her that I was irritated. "Do you want a happy customer?" ... I told her my assessment of her offer (items at cost) and she admitted that was the essence of the offer. I swallowed my irritation, told her that we were going to come out to the store because Sandy wanted to look at the boat again.

I took a few minutes to apply some drywall mud and we left for Bluewater Boats. I brought my checkbook. Monica went on about boat features but I didn't really care. I knew all that stuff from reading the specs and didn't need encouraging words. Sandy has concerns about the boat -- it is big and not an easy thing to get out of, back into, at disappearing island. It has a deeper draft -- 14" with the motor up and 30" with the motor down. The bottom line is that we have to pull up to the island at the frontside, not the back, and use the back of the boat for getting off and on. I see many larger boats doing this. We'll manage.

Monica is still going on ... I said "ok, let's write this up" ... she said "you're making me sweat". They proposed a sea trial on Thursday after which we would finalize the deal ... Sandy said (offline) that it wasn't going to make any difference, we might as well just do the deal. We did the deal. We're still going to go for a trial run on Thursday, which is really part of their service -- a shakedown cruise, so to speak. Abby will come along for the ride, naturally. They'll do some dealer prep today and more after the shakedown, so we can pick it up either late Friday or early Saturday.

So ... we have a boat. It has a head -- porta potty -- 12 gallon fresh water tank and pump for rinse off and/or motor flush (the motor can be flushed without starting it). The motor is a 150 hp Johnson 2-cycle. The boat is self-bailing, i.e. if we took in water over the front or wherever it flows out the back -- just like the Boston Whaler. Unlike the BW it also has a bilge, a limited amount of space below the deck where hoses etc. run. It has lots of storage space for a boat this size (20'), dual batteries with a switch etc. etc. etc. Although it's only 4' longer than the Bayliner, it weighs about 3 times as much. It's a true ocean-going boat, designed as such. Soon ... I'll go fishing out on the ocean.

At first blush the 150 doesn't sound like much on a boat this size but top speed is 40 mph. It gets 33% better gas mileage than the 200 on the same boat -- 4 mpg vs 3 mpg -- and with a 105 gallon tank has a good cruising range. It won't cost quite as much to fill as George's RV. 4 mpg ... doesn't a Hummer (not my bike) get better gas mileage than that ? Actually I think that the Bayliner only gets 7 mpg. Obviously it would get less than 4 mpg at top speed - if I remember from some of my readings that result is at 20-something mph.

As Monica was writing up the deal, Sandy was looking at the 22' boat. She likes it better. It is, of course, worth twice what the 20' is worth, mostly because the 22' boat is a newer model. In Hydra Sports terms, "newer model" has not involved any hull changes for the last several years, simply different screw-on parts. In NADA terms, boats like cars depreciate quickly. Some things about new models are obvious -- electronics get better all the time -- while other things, like perhaps a better porta-potty as standard equipment, are invisible. With ours -- yes it's ours now -- we could upgrade the porta-potty to a fixed unit with pump-out. Let's see how many times I have to empty the thing and then I'll decide :).

The GPS unit that I'm getting is fairly basic with depth/fish finder and built-in basemaps. It will do for now. It's going to be surface mounted so I could replace it with a newer whiz-bang, golly jeepers unit later. There is enough dash real-estate for that. There's also space for a stereo etc. but that's not our style. Who knows, our style could change.

Monica wanted to know what we proposed to name the boat. We said that we don't name boats, they are called "the Whaler", "the Bayliner" ... but as we drove back home I said to Sandy that perhaps we could call it "was this the right decision?" -- she laughed -- I forget exactly what I came up with but it was along those lines. Boats are things that last a long time. I expect that we'll have the Whaler forever. The Bayliner is much cheaper construction, but with limited use and storage in the boathouse, it too could last a long time. Wood construction with the Bayliner, albeit fiberglass covered, has the same propensity to absorb water. Wet rot or dry rot has the same result. The Hydra Sports has no wood. Accidents can happen -- gouges or more serious -- but it won't rot. The Whaler is the same, I believe.

Now, tomorrow will be fun but I'll be impatient to do things on my own. The real test will be two-fold -- a) pulling it out of the dealership, driving it home and parking in the yard ... will the clutch hold out or will we be rushing out to replace the clutch and/or car ? -- b) launching and re-loading. Launching is easier. It's a big boat to winch onto the trailer and then I have to go up the steep ramp. I have to train Sandy to drive the boat onto the trailer or train her to move the car once I've driven the boat onto the trailer. More likely the former, since she won't be able to do the final winching.

I have a couple of things to buy today -- larger sand anchors, since the ones that I have are only big enough for the Bayliner; a fire extinguisher, since I left the other up north in the Bayliner; a couple of appropriately-sized bumpers ... there's something else that I was thinking of, but it will come to me.

Onward. For the next while I'm sure that my blogs will still have "oh yes, I went for a bike ride" ... but won't say much more about biking. Boating will take up more lines of the blog. One of these days I'll write my first blog about emptying the porta-potty. Hold that thought ...