We just got back from another whirlwind trip to Florida, with the prinicipal purpose of finding The Boat...
It was a little different this time, in that we have narrowed the field somewhat to a particular kind of boat. We also took care of a little family business on the way, which led to an overnight stop in Lake City, Florida.
Monday morning we left Lake City and headed further South. Our next stop was to be in Clearwater Beach.
Just South of Gainesville, all three southbound lanes of I-75 came to a dead stop. It took two and one-half hours to go three miles, and when we finally got past the choke point, the cause turned out to be a major right-of-way dispute between a couple of cars at the entrance ramp from an interchange. Florida first responders must be required to fail an IQ test. They could have diverted traffic off the Interstate, to detour around the accident, but instead, they simply stopped traffic, stacking it up for miles, and hours of waiting.
What kind of two-car accident chokes up a whole interstate for two and a half hours anyway? In a place with reasonably astute responders, at least one of the three lanes would have been opened up right away, and the whole mess cleared out within 30 minutes!
Believe it or not, that wasn't the end of our traffic problems. I thought I was being terribly clever, scheduling my appointments during working hours on a weekday, so as to avoid traffic as much as possible. I had forgotten it was President's Day.
I think everybody with a car, who lives East of the Mississippi River, was in Clearwater that day. Not only that, the drivers in that area made Gwinnett County, Georgia, drivers look like sane people - and that's going some! Traffic was so thick that the effective speed was inches per hour in some places. Truck drivers were weaving in and out of traffic as if they were driving an MG-B, and nobody seemed to be able to read, or inclined to obey, traffic signals or signs.
In downtown Clearwater it is common for the rightmost lane of the street to become a turn-only lane. It shouldn't be a surprise, though, because the signage clearly marks such occurrences. That doesn't stop the idiots, however. They pass on the right to get around traffic, and when they get to the intersection, where cars in that lane are supposed to turn right, they simply enter the intersection anyway, and force their way into the through-traffic lane!
Inconsiderate, slimy animals, that's what they are! If I'd been armed... Well, my Honey says its a good thing I wasn't...
Where are the traffic cops when you need them? Oh, I forgot, we passed six of them on the Interstate, going into Tampa, giving out speeding tickets to people who were driving a little faster than the limit, on an open highway. I guess they felt it was safer there than in town where the real problems were...
We eventually arrived at our destination, and found that parking was a problem. It turns out that the boat we were going to see was in a private slip belonging to a condo, and the condo parking lot was marked with all kinds of dire threats for people who might think about poaching a parking space. Having an appointment, however, and no other reasonable choice of places to leave our car, we decided to park there anyway. I guarded the vehicle while my Honey went into the condo office to beg forgiveness. It worked, and we were allowed to stay while we waited for the broker, and then while we looked over the boat.
The boat we saw there was the newest of those on our list, and from what we could tell, it seemed to be well-founded, if thoroughly used. Being in the water already, and having principally been used as a floating apartment for several years, it is probably going to need a bottom job before it can be taken very far. The price is reasonable, but we didn't want to close out our options before seeing the other vessels we had arranged to see.
Concluding our business in Clearwater, we headed for the hotel in Port Charlotte. Our appointments for Tuesday were somewhat vague. We were to see two different brokers, but one had a medical appointment, and couldn't pin down when he would be available. The other said she was available pretty much any time we showed up. The one broker was to show us two different boats, and a last minute telephone consultation with him established that we would meet at the first boat at 1:00 PM. By then it was fairly late... too late to catch the other broker in her office.
Tuesday morning, we got up bright and early, and headed for Fort Myers, calling the broker there periodically, to try and update her. When someone finally answered the phone, he said that she didn't get into the office until 9:00 AM. We actually arrived at their office around 8:45 AM and were waiting for her when she opened the doors. It turned out that the boat she was to show us was in the water, practically at the office doorstep. That boat was the oldest, and had the second-highest asking price of the boats we were scheduled to see on this trip. For all that, the boat was a huge disappointment, because it had been practically butchered with owner modifications. To top it off, it looked "lived-in", big time (which isn't a deal-killer), but not very much loved (which often is). Given what it would take to restore it to usable (to us) condition, the asking price was about $10,000 too high. Furthermore, I have little or no time or inclination to take on a project boat. It didn't take long to scratch it off the list.
Since we didn't have another appointment until 1:00 PM, I asked the broker if she had anything else to show us, before we headed back to Port Charlotte. I suppose it was a mistake to let her know I intended to talk to another broker there, and that I had to leave Fort Myers by 11:30 AM in order to make that appointment.
Of course she had another boat to show us, and it was only "about 5 minutes away"! But she couldn't leave the office unmanned, and we had to wait for another broker to come and lead us to the prospective boat. Needless to say, "5 minutes away" turned into a journey of closer to 45 minutes, during which we followed the new broker, and negotiated heavy traffic. I was furious by the time we arrived, but I kept my temper under control.
The boat he showed us was nice, which it would have to have been in order to justify the asking price. It was well-maintained and looked loved. The insurmountable problem was the V-berth. It was too tight a fit. I could (barely) get into it, and when I did, it was like lying in a coffin. All in all a prodigious waste of time. By the time we got back on the road to Port Charlotte, it was clear that we wouldn't make our next appointment on time. Can you say "suspicious circumstances"?
We were able to contact the broker for our afternoon appointment by mobile phone, however, and he agreed to keep the time open for us. We managed to make up some time on the road, and were only about a half-hour late getting there.
The two boats he was to show us were "on the hard" in two different boatyards, but fortunately they were within a city block of each other. The first one he showed us had the highest asking price of the boats we were scheduled to see, and was the second-newest of them all. The boat looked solid enough, but didn't have anything obvious to recommend the high asking price, and I told him so.
The last boat he showed us struck a responsive chord. It hadn't been butchered with owner mods, it was clean and well cared-for and had all the right systems in place. On top of that, the asking price gave us some encouragement that we might actually be able to negotiate a deal. In a moment alone, while the broker was outside talking to someone else on his mobile phone, my Honey and I quickly agreed that we should make an offer on the boat. We couldn't make the offer directly to the listing broker, though, since we had been referred by someone else, so we thanked him for showing us the boat and parted company.
When we stopped for the night, I sent our referring broker an email, authorizing him to make an offer on our behalf. He did, and now again we wait.
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