Smartini Runs Aground

Not the boat named Smartini, but rather “Team Smartini” – Fran and Butch. See, two weeks ago today, we stepped off the boat named Smartini for the last time, leaving her in the very capable hands of her new owners, Linda and Brian Werder. They’ll be continuing The Big Adventure that we started five years ago; already they’ve gone way farther up the East Coast than the boat has ever been before, all the way to Urbana, VA, a little town on the Chesapeake Bay. They’ll stay there until the end of hurricane season, then head back to FL, then the Bahamas, and then wherever their adventuresome souls guide them. We wish them luck, and hope they enjoy living on Smartini as much as we did. They’ll be renaming the boat “Vahevala“, from the 1971 Loggins and Messina tune of the same name.

“But wait! Back up! Does this mean you’ve sold Smartini?!?!”, you might be thinking to yourself. “Yes!”, I would say to yourself.

In February, we left Florida for the Bahamas, to spend a few weeks with good friends Beth and Pat on their Nordhavn 60, Olaf. A few weeks turned into 3 1/2 months, and somewhere in that time span, we decided it was time to wrap up the “living on a boat” phase of our lives. We had a great time with Olaf, and also Ingrid, then Curt and Sondra, and finally Bennett and Emilie, but we found ourselves more and more aware of the fact that weather rules your life when you live on a boat, and less and less willing to keep living with that limitation. Also, our plans to explore the Western Caribbean were on indefinite COVID hold, since no country is yet anywhere near back to normal, and who wants to visit an amazing place, only to have so much of its charms unavailable? Not us.

So we decided to enjoy the hell out of our last voyage, return to Florida, and get the old girl ready to sell. (She’s almost 20 years old now!) And that’s what we did, spending countless hours over the next many weeks getting the boat into the best shape possible before showing her, and then turning her over to the next owners. I won’t even recap all the things we did, but suffice it to say that by the time Linda and Brian took the helm, the boat was in the best shape it had been in during our entire time with her, if you consider not only the general condition of things, but especially all the upgrades we did during that time.

The first time Linda and Brian came onboard, we spent five hours with them, showing them the whole boat, top to bottom, stem to stern. We knew they were a great fit for the boat, and they must have, too, because very shortly we had an offer, then a deal, then a survey and sea trial, and finally, a closing. Then, Fran and I spent the next 7 1/2 days with them, helping to get their northward journey underway, and teaching them as much as we could about the boat along the way. Two weeks ago, we left them in a marina in Daytona Beach. We’ve had only a few questions from them since then (they’re obviously quick studies), and we’ve watched their daily progress with great pleasure as they’ve made their way to the Chesapeake.

I know what you’re thinking, and for Fran, you’re right: it’s bittersweet. For me, not so much – once we decided to sell, I was already mentally ready for the next phase of life. Of course, we’ll both miss being in the beautiful water of the Bahamas, the Virgins, and all up and down the Eastern Caribbean, but all of those places are accessible by airplane. We met some absolutely fantastic people on our journey (Beth and Pat, Liz and Paul, and of course Whitey and Max, among many, many others) – but it’s not like that’s ever going to stop. Not as long as Fran is part of Team Smartini!

What IS the next phase of life? We’re going to continue being vagabonds for the foreseeable future, just land-based rather than water-based. We still have the Big Sexy Beast (our trusty 2018 Dodge minivan that we bought a year ago), and we have a long list of places we want to visit, and spend weeks or even months. Many are in the US, many are not – those will be dependent on the state of COVID, of course. We’ve started with New York City – arrived here last Thursday, and will be here for a whole month. My son Bennett lives here, just graduated from Pratt Institute here (with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, with honors – yes, I’m proud!), and just started his dream job as a Gallery Assistant at Essex Street / Maxwell Graham, his absolute favorite art gallery in all of New York. Because of him being in school and us being on the boat, we’ve not spent much time with him over the past five years, so we’re remedying that situation this month.

After NY, it’ll be Indianapolis for a bit, then Fort Collins for a bit, then back to Indy for Thanksgiving, and by then, it will be way too cold for us that for north, so it’ll be back to Florida for a bit, and then, who knows? The Keys? Mexico? Belize? Egypt? (Fran’s biggest bucket list destination, and her 50th is in January.) Hard to say. We have no plans to buy a permanent residence any time soon – have you seen what the housing market is doing?!?! So if you get a call one day, and we ask you if you’ve got a spare bedroom… don’t be surprised!

Thanks for following along through the blog, and again, my apologies for being such an infrequent author. I’ll continue to write a post now and then, but I doubt it will be any more frequent than before – sorry – I’m getting lazy in my old age.