Captain’s log
Dateline: 07.04.2022
New home
Hotels are expensive here, especially during the season, and I’m not going anywhere anytime soon with one working propeller, no AIS, and no navigation lights. Currently I’m not able to live on the boat, because she’s on the boatyard’s territory, and it’s not allowed by their insurance company for people to stay onboard while the vessel is on their premises. Besides they’re closed on weekends.
This boat’s been there for so long, that the spot where she’s at has become part of the boat yard’s territory, true story.
There’s only one solution: move the boat somewhere where I could stay on her full time, be that at an anchor or marina.
Called nearby marinas, most had no space for something of her size. Ones that did, had queues stretching for weeks, if not months. And yes, they’re quite exy, starting at $1.50/foot/day.
That’s when space technologies came in handy.
Using satellite view on Google Maps, I was able to find a large empty dock not far from Bob & Annie’s boatyard.
Went there to scout the next day, turned out that the dock is part of a lot that’s there up for sale, and the broker is no one else but Randy’s wife Monica, the lady in red from that gala that the guy who sold me the boat, Micky, invited me to when I first arrived to Fort Myers.
Randy is the owner of Bob & Annie’s boatyard. Randy and Micky went to high school together. Small island.
He talked to his wife, she asked if I could rent the dock, and a day later I had contact details of Miceli, the land owner. She was willing to rent it out to me. I offered $1/foot/day, that’s $44/day for my boat, and that was a done deal! Here I have electricity, fresh water, complete privacy, and everything is right nearby. Plus Randy lets me use their yard’s address to ship Amazon packages to, and dumpster to get rid of whatever I don’t need. They’ve really helped me with this project more than I could ever express. Oh, and Miceli owns a restaurant not far from here called Miceli’s Restaurant. Small island.
$44/day is less than 1/3 of what hotels here generally charge per day, and besides, I just couldn’t let myself keep the boat at Bob & Annie’s anymore. They never charged me anything for like two months of the boat being there after the sale, and I really wanted to get her out of their way, they have work to do there.
TowBoatUS towed me for about $500, it was easier than I expected. My one working prop helped a bit with sharp turns.
Randy took some photos, said it was farther than she’s ever moved in the last 15 years. The boat is so huge that the whole crew of the yard had to help me turn her and untie the docking lines. One of the employees said while untying her, "You could put three boats here". Fat shaming... she’s just chunky, not fat.
They were extremely happy to finally see that boat vanish out of their yard.
And I now have a new home, this one I both rent and own.
If the land gets bought and I can’t dock here anymore, I’ll just tow her again and anchor somewhere nearby, that’s free. I hope to have her electric propulsion system up and running before then though. Good thing that I can now charge my batteries from solar. One step closer to being autonomous.