Chasing Miss Right

Manatees resting at the City Marina in Fort Pierce, FL

We are searching for the perfect boat. This is a dream we've had for years, it's taken so many twists and turns in our almost-20 years together.

Back in April 2000, less than a month after our very first date, Lance talked me into our first boat. It was a 14' zodiac on a trailer with a 35hp Mercury outboard motor, we each came up with half of the asking price of $800 and bought her from some spearfishermen in the Oakland Hills. The inflatable body of the boat was covered from stem to stern in assorted repairs. Naturally, we named her Patches. We dove the hell out of the Northern California coast in that little inflatable boat - from Big Sur to Crescent City we'd load our gear, pump her up, slide her off the trailer, motor JUST over there, roll over the side and go for it. She could fit 6 abalone freedivers or 4 well-organized camera-laden scuba divers and we were then able to anchor along the outside of the kelp forests and enjoy new angles on the dive sites we loved, without having to lug our gear across the sand. Heaven.

One of our regular dive sites involved backing the trailer down a switchback mountainside road to dunk the trailer, and then camping in the cold fog overnight. We upgraded our pickup to a stick-shift F250 diesel with the intent to install a cab-over camper so we'd have somewhere warm to sleep.

For a brief moment we played with a HobieCat which promptly flipped and left us clinging to her hull until the wind pushed us to the lake's edge where we laid shivering in the sun until we could gain the sensation in our limbs required to drag it onto the beach. We towed it home and later onto the lawn to restitch the failing trampoline. But I never came up with enough nerve after that to try sailing it again.

At about the same time the landlord started giving me trouble (he was miffed about us having the Hobiecat on the lawn for one afternoon for tramp repairs, or Lance telling him to *ahem* go away...or something along those lines... when he got snotty about our lawn activity). We talked about buying a boat to liveaboard on together - what a romantic idea for our next home! We shopped hard for that liveaboard and found a dreamy 35' Cheoy Lee trawler on the Sacramento delta around the time Lance graduated from the Engineering program, then he was offered a job in Southern California. The very weekend we were going to hand over the liveaboard down payment we decided instead to accept the job offer in an area with more income opportunities and started tying up loose ends in Napa.

Angels Gate Lighthouse as shot from the deck of the Sea Monkey. This photo was selected as the contest winner and printed in Good Old Boat magazine in 2017. The spinnaker was a gift from the cousins and made light-air sailing infinitely more fun.

In 2004 we moved to Los Angeles County for Lance's new job in Hollywood and a parking space for Patches was one of the criterion for the rental home selected. I taught my last scuba class in Monterey while Lance traveled ahead with our stuff, after the class I waved goodbye to family and our favorite Monterey dive spots, then I towed Patches down to our new home, with big dreams of scuba diving in warmer waters. It was February. Northern California reluctantly let me go, spitefully spitting big fat cold raindrops on me all the way to the Grapevine. When I arrived to Pasadena I was greeted with sunny 80-degree blue skies and palm trees waved me in. The very next weekend we found a boat launch, donned our gear and puttered around Long Beach looking for a kelp patch to dive. That's when we discovered our little inflatable boat wasn't cut out for Southern California. The good diving is WAY over there on Catalina Island - 26 miles away - barely visible from the shores of Long Beach. A very long haul for little Patches and a cold, wet and bumpy ride for us. We needed a bigger boat. We placed her with an old man who wanted to take his grandson fishing on lakes. He didn't mind the patches as he said he would probably add more with the grandson and the hooks anyways. I cried while hooking her trailer to his truck.

The next boat in our lives was an old Bayliner. We bought her from a broker on Lake Mead and dragged her down the mountain without trailer brakes - it's good that nobody short-stopped in front of us or we would have ended up crushed by the heavy old boat. The very next weekend we dunked her at the Alamitos boat ramp in Long Beach and set out for Catalina. Our brave friend Matt "Hardvickenstein" came along to help us wrangle her. During our first outing Lance, Matt and I shared a bottle of champagne while swimming two at a time in the endlessly blue deep water halfway between the island and the mainland. Years later that I found out we'd been swimming in the same area where great white sharks are often seen by the paddlers competing in the annual Catalina Classic. Oops.

We had so many adventures in that boat, most of them involved a healthy dose of cursing. She was a beast - heavy, old, cantankerous, and she didn't fit well on her trailer. Some days she refused to be loaded back onto her trailer, sometimes she wouldn't idle or wouldn't go in reverse, or just would not turn over at all, then later in her own time she would fire up just fine, leaving us scratching our heads and wondering what we'd done right that last time and wrong all the times before.

We eventually named her Christine (with a nod to Stephen King), because she generally ran best when one of us was bleeding on her. She had so many sharp edges it usually didn't take long to find an exposed screw or other sharp edge and then she would be appeased. One time Lance was cutting kelp off the anchor and sliced his hand open, immediately after that she decided she would run in reverse when we asked her to. That lasted a few weekends for which we were grateful, when his wound healed into a scar she again refused to go into reverse. I wasn't superstitious when I met this boat, over the years together she changed my mind.

  Every morning at anchor we'd wake up to several inches of water on the salon floor - the two of us sleeping in the bow changed the pitch of the boat enough so that the bilge pump couldn't get it all. We tried every trick in the book and never did find the source of that obnoxious leak. At first it was alarming, over time we came to accept it as part of our daily routine and calmly made coffee from the kitchen table while keeping our feet elevated on the salon chair, handed up the mugs of coffee to the big stern cushion, and sipped our coffee while gleefully discussing the day's dive plan, during which time our weight on the stern changed the pitch enough that the bilge pump could suck most of the rest of the water out of the galley floor. The last inch or so would disappear while we motored to the first dive location of the day.

We dove every named spot on the Catalina Franko dive map, and then we filled our little handheld GPS with new spots we found ourselves, giving them names that often made us giggle with a specific memory.

The good thing about having an old fixer boat is that there's nothing to lose by trying new things. We carved holes out of the top of the livebait well that perfectly secured our dive tanks and weights, freeing the deck of gear. I made custom bags for wrangling clean and dirty laundry, storing tools and other boat gear. Lance modified just about every mechanical, plumbing and electrical system.

One day, after a long night of lobster hunting on Catalina, she died at sunrise on our way back to Long Beach and would not be resuscitated. We called Boat US who towed us back to Long Beach and helped us wrangle her onto the trailer. Lance was so disgusted with her behavior he called the Boat Angels to pick her up from the storage lot - he couldn't stand the sight of her even to deliver her to the charity. We did not cry over that good-bye.

At some point during the nausea-inducing 4-hour tow home that day we decided we'd learn to sail. With an alternate method of propulsion we hoped to never need to be towed again. It seemed like the logical next step.

The very next weekend we dropped a pile of cash at the Long Beach sailing school and collected books and basic navigation tools. We cut off a short length of rope and left it lying around the house, while studying for our sailing exams we'd take turns practicing knots with it, and for years afterwards that rope remained lying around the house somewhere, usually if the television was on one of us could be found absentmindedly tying knots.

We took every sailing course offered by the Long Beach ASA school, and rented their sailboats as often as we could scrape together the funds and time. One day, the little bean-counter at heart than I am, I added up what we were spending on rentals and announced we could buy a sailboat of our own for less than we spent with the rental agency, and if we didn't pay to store it we'd actually save money by the 10th month. Before long there was a MacGregor 26X sailboat with a 60hp outboard on a trailer in the driveway. Dual Porpoise was much lighter and narrower than Christine, we had big dreams of sailing and scuba diving from that MacGregor but found that adding dive gear to the little trailer sailboat just made us miserable - there wasn't enough space to get around. The dive gear collected dust while we sailed on without it.

Dual Porpoise on the trailer in the yard

With the big and noisy outboard motor roaring, the bilge empty and the centerboard up, the MacGregor could really scoot if the seas were calm. On one pond-smooth day we flew around the breakwater wall and were surprised by some Sheriff recovery divers and for a moment I thought we'd get a speeding ticket... in a sailboat... and I sort of hoped we would so I could frame it. They were as surprised by the sailboat speeding past them as we were surprised by them being there in the through-way with their tiny dive flag down way too low to be seen from the oncoming traffic. Everyone aboard both boats exchanged wide-eyed glances as we swerved belatedly wide to give them room to work.

Dual Porpoise on a mooring ball at Two Harbors, Catalina after our first crossing together. Our first improvement after this trip was a boom kicker to raise the boom off the deck, which greatly improved topside comfort at anchor.

With the mast on in motorboat mode she was pretty rolly, so she was not a great powerboat except in glass-calm conditions. In sailboat mode she wasn't a great sailboat either, she was too lightweight and her freeboard was quite high so she felt fragile and skittery  - I never trusted her to keep us safe in any sort of real weather. It took hours to drive her to the dock, get her mast setup and get her in the water. Often a significant amount of bickering was involved and generally by the time we motored away from the boat ramp either on the water or on the highway we were exhausted and cranky. So one summer we decided to leave her on the trailer with the mast up at the boat yard, to limit the setup effort because she'd already be there ready to go. From there it was a short jump to "let's just leave her in the water at Marina Del Rey all the time". Not long after that first summer at the marina we found ourselves eyeballing our cousins' Hunter sailboat with envy - they were actually taking up the whole width of their slip... for the same price we were paying to keep the skinny MacGregor in the water we could have a proper sailboat with room for dive gear too! We sold the MacGregor and bought a 28' Hunter sailboat.

Sea Monkey at rest in Long Beach

We loved that sailboat. We christened her the Sea Monkey and sailed every chance we got. Finding a little elbow room on the water saved our souls, which by that point had really begun to chafe at crowded city life in Southern California.

I still get choked up when I think of her. If you've read this blog from the beginning you've met the Sea Monkey, we sold her just before selling the house to become full-time RVers, all of which was done so we could go in search of the perfect liveaboard boat. While we don't regret moving to Southern California to pursue career opportunity, participation in the rat race or becoming homeowners, the liveaboard dream fueled by that Cheoy Lee on the Sacramento delta never really left our hearts, it just grew sails and bigger horizons.

So... back to today. We're boat shopping seriously now. This next boat will be so much bigger than we've ever had before, somewhere in the 38-42 foot range. There needs to be room for two adults, a dog and two cats, space for my office stuff and it would be nice if we could fit a couple of guests for short stays. Of course we'd like to bring dive gear aboard so there needs to be storage for that and room on deck to wrangle it. Because we'll be sailing "short-handed" all the lines need to be led aft, either of us need to be comfortable with most of the sailing duties while the other rests or does chores and if the majority of the captain's work could be done from the dry safety of the cockpit all the better. Plus, space for all the little things that get done in daily life need to be considered - from swimsuits to warm jackets, from sewing machine to coffeemaker, from tools to cat food.

Sailboat shopping... we've learned a lot. Like usual, we have our list of well-considered requirements at our fingertips. We know our budget, the absolute must-haves and the dream-haves. We know the approximate cost of the electronic goodies we will likely need to add. We've spent countless hours debating this or that hull shape, boat architect/designer, motor, interior layout. We've toured a handful, it's a lot like used car shopping in that the brokers tend to try to pry you into whatever's available in their inventory, so it's important to know what you want/need before you go there or you'll be dragged all over the marina looking at sinking derelicts or megayachts only manageable with a crew of several.

We've learned that a "bluewater boat" means small windows, deep fridges and secure lockers. "Traditional styling" means lots of heavy dark wood will line every surface; so in a "traditional bluewater sailboat" I will not be able to see out the few small windows and will have a panic attack in the cave-like salon, and I will never be able to reach anything in the bottom half of the fridge, let alone keep it clean.

We've learned that "center cockpit" means Lance likely can't stand up straight. Since he is our chef he needs to be able fit in the galley, and since we will be taking turns at the wheel he'll need to be able to stand straight there too.

We've learned that "turn key" actually means nothing whatsoever, as we have yet to tour any that are actually really ready to leave right now although we have toured several that were advertised as such. We were initially hoping to avoid significant boat work before departure but are coming to accept we will be doing some work before sailing away, perhaps quite a bit of it.

This one's too big. That one's too small. This one is unsafe. That one needs too much work. This one costs too much more than it is worth. That one doesn't really fit us - it's too short for Lance or I can't see out from behind the wheel.

First world problems... right?

We will keep searching. Miss Right is out there somewhere.

What all of this means for Loretta and Mr. Toad, we just don't know yet. It depends on what and where Miss Right is and what she needs, and whether or not we want to boat year-round or switch between land and sea cruising life. We hope it will all become clear when we finally meet her.

In the meantime, RV fun is scheduled through February, we'll continue to fit boat shopping around it.

This mossy souvenir was collected from Crystal Isles RV Resort, apparently I got a little closer than planned to that tree in our campsite

Internet Speed Comparison Crystal Isles RV Resort, Crystal River, FL Sampled 11/13/19 at 10am
	MB down	MB up
Calyx (Sprint)	4.99	4.50
Google Fi	11.8	0.54
Jetpack (Verizon)	5.76	0.49
Park wifi	Not tested, extra $