Buying a Boat, Take 2

Our first order of business  in Florida was to buy a boat. Another boat. 

 We'd already bought one boat, (March 19: "I'd Say You're Pyscho.") but we left it in the driveway in Massachusetts, collecting snow. We’d done our research before buying the boat, but we didn’t think about the trailer. Fortunately, before we left town, Darren, our grumpy guardian angel at Amherst Welding, pointed out that the rinky-dink trailer the boat came with would never make it to Florida.

Going to the Florida keys without a boat was not an option, at least for Ben. Instead of binge watching TLC or cat videos like the rest of us, Ben had been watching The Key West Waterman when he couldn’t sleep at 4am. 

The first promising boat was in West Smyrna Beach. The owner lived on a small house on a big lot that backed up to dark, dense jungle of palm trees.  We spent about 10 minutes inspecting the boat before he appeared, a wizened Florida man in his 50s, who was already about a six pack deep into his evening.

“I can't believe you came all the way from Jacksonville!" We'd last messaged him from there, but actually we had driven all the way from Manning, South Carolina, where we spent the night in the Walmart parking lot.
We explained that we were passing through on our way to the Keys.

“That makes more sense, bro, I wouldn't drive 90 minutes for this. It's just an old boat.”

Almost any old boat would do for us, as long as it didn't leak. We were more concerned about the trailer. We kicked the tires measured the rims while Florida man tried in vain to start the ancient 20 HP motor.

Every time he tried and failed to start the motor the price came down. “Sorry bro, I don’t know why you’d want this old boat.” 

In the end, we decided the trailer wheels were too small for the kind of highway mileage we were planning to put on it, but at this price it might be worth going to a local welder to have it modified. We told him we'd think about it and get back to him in the morning.

But in the morning we had much bigger things to worry about.