Hello everyone, sorry it’s been awhile. Things have been busy up here, and my brother had the audacity to get married-in Indiana of all places (Obviously Alaska would be a better place for that). We did go fishing quite a bit, and all these things took a toll on my spare time. So I will attempt to summarize these chain of events.
The first unlikely event occured late in July. My neighbor casually mentioned he had a 16 foot boat with a 35 hp outboard that I was welcome to borrow. This of course got my attention. Not wanting to be unfrugal, I had avoided buying a boat, as I hear they can be money pits. But free use of a boat? You can’t go wrong with that. So the one evening I picked up this boat to give it a whirl.
This coincided with some terrible advice from somehow who I never really thought of as evil before. “You can save money by launching that boat from the beach”, they said. “Don’t pay those outragous $13 boat launch fees”. So the one afternoon we went down to beach with the borrowed boat, and attempted to launch it into the surf. A fellow named Marlin Swarey was along, and my son Shane. What happened next looked like a scene out of the 3 stooges. Getting the boat into the water was not a problem-but as soon as I tried to climb into the boat to join Marlin and Shane, the waves would wash it right back onto shore. Then we would repeat the process. Finally, soaked and discouraged, we loaded the boat back on the trailer and considered plan B.
By this time, the $13 launch fee in Homer sounded like the best bargain in the world. We took the boat down there, launched it, and the small boat worked flawlessy the rest of the evening. However, when I returned the boat, my neighbor called and said the prop looked more scratched up than before. This was apparently from our beach incident. Smitten with guilt, I quickly agreed to buy the boat from him. No use upsetting the neighbors. What’s a few dollars between friends.
Fast forward a few weeks, and in between we had dip netting, more Halibut fishing, and then this brings us to my brother’s wedding. Being practical in nature, I decided if I drove the whole way into Indiana I needed to make it worthwhile. So I threw a few bids on boats on Ebay, and happened to win a 27 foot cabin cruiser for a paltry sum. Those boats sell for quite a bit more up here, so it seemed like an easy way to make money.
The problem with this boat was it’s size. 27 feet didn’t really sound big in my mind, but when I went to pickup the boat it was longer and bigger than my van. Needing to haul this thing 4,400 miles compounded the problem.
The trip from PA to Indiana started off on a bad note. First, we were late for the wedding rehearsal because we were pulling the boat. My wife also pointed out we were the only ones that brought a boat to the wedding rehearsal. But, despite our tardiness Josh and Janice got married anyway.
The rest of the trip went smoothy, but slow. Then a little bit past Tok, Alaska we ran into a snowstorm. We had to wait beside the road for several hours until a plow truck cleared the road off. Finally, later in the day we made it home.
The boat’s name is “Doesn’t leak” which I think sounds a bit stupid. It caused endless comments at gas stations and even the Alaska border crossing. I’ll probably change the boat name to something else, but not sure what. Maybe “Bigfoot Blaster”.
So that’s pretty much it…
Matt
Launching my little boat with the limo:
My 50 pound Halibut
The 27 foot boat and van: (you know it’s a good boat if it has port holes)
