April 24th, 2017

I always have an urge to talk like a pirate when I am at a boat show.  Wait, doesn't everyone?  It's hard to resist an opportunity for pirate speak  but we went to the Suncoast Boat Show in Sarasota anyway.  Great fun.

It was a gorgeous day, all blue skies, sunshine and just enough breeze that you don't realize that you are getting sunburnt.  Perfect boat show weather.  And my goodness they had a lot of boats to see. From these very funky paddle boards that have handlebars and are sort of like elipticals in that they have pedals (?) to jet skis to one of the biggest boats in attendance, the seven million dollar yacht Miss B Haven the 6 person crew of which can tend 10 guests at a time. Mercy!

One of my boat requirements is that it have a bathroom, or in "boat-speak" head.  Doesn't have to be fancy, but does need to exist.  One of Tim's preferences is a catamaran. Neither of us is into fishing so any boat that is specifically designed for catching fish can be eliminated too. And I'm too uncoordinated to properly keep a sailboat upright. So keeping those things in mind, we checked out a lot of different crafts. 

One of the things that just tickles me about a boat is how terribly clever the designers are about finding places to put things.  There is absolutely zero wasted space.  I'm like a little kid prowling around, peeking into spaces,  opening everything openable, looking out the various windows, marveling over the charts and all the doo-dads on the console of the pilots chair, pretending we are at sea. One of the questions I always ask myself is, can I walk from the bow to the stern while on the water without falling overboard. If the answer is no, or even probably not, wrong boat.

And it was great fun, but none of them were the right one.  It's not like we are ready to buy a boat, understand, but when that day comes we want to already know. We don't want to start our search then, we want to be ready to go buy it then.  A word to the wise people, always do your research whether it's a house, a car or a boat!

And then we found this one:

The Endeavour. It's a Trawler Cat.  We both love this boat.  It has such a lovely spacious, roomy, comfortable, okay you are home now feeling.  Okay it's not sleek and sexy. But it's perfect for us.  The rooms actually felt like rooms. And so much light!  The top deck can be accessed from inside and there is a lot of outside space. (the front and back porch so to speak)  Two bathrooms  (!)  There was absolutely nothing that we would change about this vessel.  We were toured by the company owner and his wife, both lovely people that we quite enjoyed. 

In fact, we liked it so much, that before we left the show, we came back and walked through it again.  We are not yet ready to buy (and have no place to dock it even if we were so there you go, more research!)  But when the day comes, we know who we are going to call.  I've already been on the web page since we have come home watching the video's and saying, "Yup, that's it".  Exciting to think about.  We are both hoping the boat buying day comes soon!