The boat that we were so excited to see turned out to be an incredible disappointment. I ended up telling the boat broker that put us onto it that I considered it a dock queen, nothing more than a floating condo and that I was very disappointed that he would have shown it to us knowing what we intend to do with it. It was no doubt a very nice vessel in it’s past but it has now been so extensively butchered as to render it unseaworthy.
After we got over the disappointment of looking at the first boat we spent the next three days looking at more suitable vessels. We even came within a whisker of making an offer on one of the boats we looked at. We had initially looked at wooden boats, then ruled them out completely, then considered them again and would have made an offer on a Monk McQueen if it hadn’t been for the advice of Peter Leech. Peter is the father-in-law of one of Marilyn’s nieces and a former partner in Grand Yachts of Coal Harbour, Vancouver. We spent about 4 hours with Peter and his wife on Wednesday and at the end of that time he had convinced us that for our purposes we need to find a fibreglass boat.
Late on Wednesday we finally got around to liberating the cubevan from it’s storage yard in Chilliwack. We’d been having so much fun looking at boats that we just hadn’t got home early enough any day up until then. As it turned out we picked a pounding rainstorm for our pickup time. The Malibu tarp had come undone so we redid that in the rainstorm and took the van back to the campground. Around noon on Thursday we headed for Kelowna.
We had a good visit with Marilyn’s brother Fred on Thursday evening and with her other brother, Dan on Friday morning. Fred loaded us up with garden produce and home canning which we have been enjoying as we travel. Today we met up with Dick and Olive, a couple that we met in Mexico close to 15 years ago now. They were well into their 70’s when we first met and they are still driving to Mexico so they are our travel mentors. They live in Comox but were visiting friends in Alberta. We met them on the side of #3 highway in Fernie and cooked dinner for them. Then we continued east until we got across the Saskatchewan border. We’re in the rest area at the Welcome to Saskatchewan booth outside Maple Creek tonight. Tomorrow we’ll be back in Buchanan for a couple of days and then I need to fly out to West Virginia for a few days.
2 comments:
Agree......1st one pimp my ride by tent city. Liked the second.
At least you are doing better than me. Do a query on a boat and the broker never gets back even after the 2nd or 3rd try. Was dealing with the owner on one in North Vancover the broker had a simple task "What would it cost to get the boat to Montana?". 4 weeks later and a couple of "what's happening" NOTHING. I've moved on.
Good luck on your searching
Skip
PS Havre..... better leaving than going to though I hear the under city tour is good.
Agreed on the appearance Skip but if you can imagine that boat without all the canvas crap it has really good lines. That was my intent - rip all the canvas geegaws off and throw them in the ocean leaving a good solid boat behind. However that was before I knew that some stupid SOB had completely removed the inside helm which is probably why they also completely enclosed the flybridge. And the flatscreen blocking the access to the engine room is honestly the biggest one I have ever seen - its even bigger than Al & Camiel's and that one is huge.
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