Fort Myers is but a mere fifty or so miles on up the road from Marco Island not that I expected you to give a rat's ass one way or another. Nevertheless it also happens to be the place where I purchased S/V Blondie-Dog a while back on somewhat of an impulse.
For you see, I happened to be "wandering" about Florida at about that time essentially camping out of my car while driving from one marina to another and checking out boats that I'd found listed on Craigslist.
In hindsight I suppose that it was a pretex for doing something "constructive" while attempting to collect my thoughts and figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life after an abrupt end to a marriage of twenty-five years.
So after inspecting a number of crapped-out, over-priced project boats along the east coast of Florida in addition to passing through a few gawd forsaken communities such as Indiantown, a remote dot on the map where alligators far out number residents, I finally came across a boat that satisfied my criteria insofar as cost and seaworthiness.
Sure there'd be a few issues to deal with such as ground tackle, a topping lift, electrical wiring clanging inside the mast, the head, and finally a compass but other than that she pretty much satisfied my criteria of being fully functional and ready to sail.
And with the boat already having been heavily discounted insofar as price was concerned it was decision time as to whether or not I'd buy the boat.
So there I sat inside my car with a Starbucks coffee in hand overlooking the Calloosahachie River contemplating whether I really wanted to re-live the past and be a live-aboard cruiser again and if not, then where would I go.
An hour had already elapsed past the time that I had committed to call the seller while I sipped the last of my coffee but that's when my phone rang. It was the owner calling me and cheerfully inquiring whether I'd purchase the boat if he dropped the price another thou.
And with me kinda-sorta already having decided not to purchase the boat I proceeded to unilaterally start listing the few things that needed to be done on the boat to make it cruiser-ready. Yet somehow I inadvertently and inexplicably talked myself into buying the boat even though the asking price had never been an issue with me.
If anything, I could re-sell the boat at the same heavily discounted price that I had paid if I were to later to decide that living aboard no longer suited me.
Living aboard would at least give me some time to figure out what exactly it was that I wanted to do with the rest of my life if anything.
Yet the irony of it all, inspite of having had plenty of time to figure out just what it is that I want to do going forward, I'll confess to still being at a loss as to what exactly comes next while tending to an aching heart.
And I'm reminded of the lyrics to an old U2 song... "But I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"...
Fort Myers Beach
City of Fort Myers Marina
Lounge area inside the Fort Myers City Marina.
Yacht Basin
Good post. I think a lot of our generation still don't know what we are looking for. I know some very interesting late fifty year olds that don't know what they are going to do when they grow up.
ReplyDeleteHi Don... I'll figure it all out one of these days. Hope all is well on your end.
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