Buying a Boat, Take 3

After all the problems we’d had with the two vehicles we already owned – the truck brake booster giving out and the camper jack fiasco – the idea of adding another vehicle to our entourage was overwhelming.

But after two days of beach party therapy at Daytona Beach, we were ready to think about buying a boat again. A boat would give us the freedom to really explore; and, more importantly to Ben, find those fish.

Naturally, Ben is attracted to fishing. He’s a chef who likes to know where his food comes from. He’s built a career around making the freshest, local ingredients available to home cooks, almost single-handedly creating a market for New England-grown heirloom grain (shameless plug for Pioneer Valley Heritage Grains!)

By the time I met him, he’d already bored with deploying all his fancy fishing gadgets (including an underwater fish-finding camera attached to an oar) against the lazy stocked trout in our local ponds. By midsummer they are so sluggish you can pretty much hit them over the head with the latest and greatest lures without getting a nibble. He was also pretty bored with eating the same three subspecies.  Florida, on the other hand, appeared to be an all-you-can-eat buffet of snapper, mackerel, grouper,  tuna, and more, not to mention the lobsters just waiting to be tickled out from under their rocks.

Dead center of the venn diagram of traditional foodways and outdoor sports, Ben had recently discovered his latest hobby: spearfishing.

For me, spear fishing conjured images (as depicted on shows like Survivor) of well-muscled men in loincloths swimming around with stone arrowheads attached to sticks. To my disappointment, modern spear fishing involves men swimming around with expensive specialized gear, like spear guns and weight belts, covered head to toe in neoprene.

With hundreds of dollars worth of spearfishing gear sitting in the back of the truck, Ben sure as hell was going to use it.  

The next suitable boat en route to the Keys was in Vero Beach. The seller identified himself on Facebook as Greg, introduced himself as Mike, but appeared on the deed to the boat and on his driver’s license as Brandon.

 “Mike” was in his fifties, thick and scruffy. When we arrived at the tidy little ranch house, he was in the middle of roasting brisket for Saint Paddy’s Day, which we’d forgotten was tomorrow. Like the seller in New Smyrna, he was a little drunk, but very personable and up front about the boat's many flaws.

“It’s fine in calm waters,” he said. “But it can get tipsy if you catch a wake from one of those big speedboats.” I had a feeling he was the one who got tipsy. 

This boat was just as old as the last one, but somewhat sturdier, and more importantly, the trailer it came with had adequate-sized wheels.

Mike was drunk enough to make counting the stack of bills we gave him extremely difficult.

He laughed. “I’m out of practice since my drug dealing days!” Turned out he’d carried suitcases of cash around back when he was selling weed in Colorado, before it was legalized. Now he owned some kind of construction business.

Soon enough, we were cruising down the dead-end cul-de-sac with an 18-foot-long trailer behind us, wondering how we would ever turn it around.

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