Realizing Life's Goals - June 03, 2007
Without goals in life, I'd be living without hope for the future. I try to make my goals realistic, within my grasp and abilities. I'm no brain surgeon or rocket scientist, for sure. So I've always aimed for attainable goals. Retiring to our spot on the water was one of those. Acquiring the "perfect boat" for such a spot was another.
I researched hard on the internet to find different areas on the water that were affordable for a retired teacher on a pension. I looked for close to 5 years, using dial-up web service- all we could afford! (Realtor.com became an almost daily visit.) That's hundreds of hours of waiting for pictures of homes to download, enough to drive an ordinary man to distraction- or worse. But I have an uncanny ability to be pretty patient. Don't get me wrong, I have a temper, and have my limits of frustration. Teaching the slower students as well as the bright ones has taught me patience, I think. If you want results from the slower pupil, ya got to be patient. It will come, but at an entirely different speed than the average student. (One of our key weaknesses in public education is that there are usually no special classes for the kids with verbal I.Q.'s in the 70 - 89 range, too smart for "Special Ed." classes- below 70 I.Q.- and struggling to keep up with average and brighter kids.) So to be an effective (and compassionate) teacher I learned to have lots of patience.
Debbie and I spent almost every vacation looking at homes. We started with the ideal location, Hawaii, where I was born. We even went back there for 24 days and really looked hard at homes, living as cheaply as possible without camping on the beaches. It was almost heartbreaking to come to the realization that it just wasn't a practical place to retire. We could only do it if we both worked two jobs. Some retirement! But if ya got the bucks, that's the place to go, if you think you wouldn't suffer from "Island Fever"- an itching to get off the island and back to bigger spaces, and friends and family on the mainland. Oh, by the way- don't waste your time on Oahu, my home island, and home to close to a million inhabitants. They have traffic jams, gangs, murders, and all the problems that come with living in close proximity. The Big Island- Hawaii- has some nice areas, more like small oasises among the bare lava flows that stretch for miles. It even has some affordable housing. But look out for buying home insurance; the Big Island has the only active volcanos in the archepeligo. That's the principle reason housing is affordable on that island. Maui is supposed to be nice, but local folk from Kauai tell me it's more for the "flaky Hollywood types" who only stay for two years or so, then move on, usually selling most of their furniture at garage sales that local Kauaiians grab up and resell back home. Look elsewhere, even for a brief visit. I can only recommend the island of Kauai, the northernmost island. It's called "The Garden Island" for a reason; it's the greenest of all Hawaian islands. It's where Hollywood loves to come and film Jurrasic Park, South Pacific, and even the fantastic TV show- Lost. It really reminds me of Daytona Beach around 1964. It's quiet, has few nightclubs that stay open past 9 PM, and many folks there are sort of "spiritual" in nature, very much into healthy lifestyles. Kauai has almost everything you could ask for, except a lively nightlife! The sidwalks sort of "roll up" around dark-thirty there. But no big crowds, very low crime rate, only a brief traffic jam around quittin' time, and it's an outdoors paridise! It's the ONE place in the US you should visit before you die. No kidding! (Just try and do it while you can still go kyacking and snorkling. You don't want to just be a wallflower at this dance.) If I ever win the lottery- guess where we'll head for? If you go to Kauai, and you see a middleaged White fella playing exceptional guitar left-handed, ask him his name. If his nick-name is "Lefty"- tell him Mike Upchurch, a fella he briefly befriended back in 2000, says hi.
So Deb and I checked out Key West. Save your money. Way too hot and expensive. The limited variety of terrain bothered me. It's just not green enough! And Key West of the present is not the Key West of Jimmy Buffet's old songs from the '70's. We looked at Norfolk, Virginia- way too crowded, the Northern Neck, and south along the coast until we hit Beaufort, South Carolina. Had to be the hottest, most humid spot we'd ever visited, but had the most friendly people we'd seen anywhere. Strangers would just come up to us and ask how we were doin'! This wasn't just one person, but several. That impressed us. Since climate and crowds affected our preferences greatly, we headed north and found a town of almost the same name to be our favorite spot-Beaufort, North Carolina, but pronounced "bow-fert", not "beau-fert" as in South Carolina. Unfortunately Beaufort, NC, turned out to be too small, too historic, and way too expensive. Even our real estate salesperson was a snob!
We made concentric circles out from Beaufort, looking at nearby areas until we found New Bern. This was it: perfect size -but growing perhaps too fast now, lots of history and beauty, lots of waterfront with deep water access for bigger boats, affordability, and nice climate. We went back home and I started focusing my web searches for a year on the New Bern area. Then we saw it: a home on Realtor.com that had one of those "virtual views"- a series of photos stitched together to give you the impresasion of turning slowly and viewing whole rooms, yards, docks, etc. It was in our price range on deep water on a beautiful creek that led to a nice wide river and out to the ocean. Perfect! We bought it and one goal was reached, our retirement home had been found. It only took 5 years of looking and patience.
The next goal was to put the right boat at our dock on Brices Creek. Our new home came with a boat, a SeaRay 21 foot openbow, basically a ski boat. I told the previous owner it would do us until I could get what I wanted- a small cabin cruiser. Unfortunately the motor in that boat died within a couple months of our moving in, and since a replacement motor would cost too much, I sold the boat on its trailer. Just a few trips out into the Neuse in that boat showed me I couldn't afford a V8 gas engine's thirst. It cost us $40 worth of gas for just one hour on the water, and that was when gas was way under $3 per gallon. I knew diesel motors were in my future.
I'd been researching small cabin cruisers for years on the internet, reading what others had said about theirs and others' boats. I can't remember exactly when I first heard of the Albin 25 and 27 aft-cabin cruisers. But what I had read must have excited some degree of passion in me because I immediately signed up to be a member of the (Yahoo) Albin Users Group online. I lurked online reading daily posts to this users group for over 4 years before I ever made my presence known by posting my first "letter" to the group. That was just 3 weeks ago. I made my first posting because I then felt for the first time I was actually a member of their group- I had bought my first Albin!
Because of sheer poverty, waiting for our Virginia home to sell, I had to wait for 3 years to get the boat I wanted. Patience again. In that time we made do with a small 16 foot sailboat for short excursions onto the water. It's my dad's old boat, a 1976 Advance StoAway cuddy cabin sailboat. I put a 4 hp Yamaha four stroke outboard on the back and we could motor down Brices Creek until we got under the bridge and out onto the Trent River. Then we could raise the mast and the sails, if the wind wasn't too strong- or too light! Using that little boat helped us maintain our sanity while waiting for the "right" boat. Then I found it: an Albin 27 aft-cabin for sale nearby in Oriental, NC! But this was in November '06, back before we'd sold our home, so we couldn't afford to buy it. I bet I checked that boat's status every day, just knowing someone would beat me to it. Then our house sold, and my lovely wife gave me permission to check the Albin out.
I did everything right- I thought. I hired a boat surveyor and a mechanic to check the boat. I paid nicely for a boat yard to haul it out so the bottom could be inspected carefully. Basically I invested $378 for the survey and $185 for the motor checkup, a total of $563 for a boat I didn't even own! What I learned was this: Hire the mechanic first! If the motor doesn't check out, and the cost of fixing or replacing the engine/ transmission is too high, why pay for the haul-out and survey? I learned the boat was sound, in great shape for an old gal made in 1984. But the engine (a Ford/Pugeot Lehman 4D61) was a bit long in the tooth, and basically obsolete. My mechanic never said that. He gave it a clean bill of health. I went home and researched the engine online and found out it was obsolete. Parts are getting hard to find, and pricy if you can find them at all! So I had to make a decision: either wait for another Albin like this (but with a newer engine) to come up for sale locally- which could take years, pay a captain to pilot one to me from Maine or Key West- at an additional fee of thousands of dollars, have one shipped overland on a custom trailer- again for thousands more, or get the one available now and locally and take a chance on the motor living up to its reputation of longitivity. Life is a gamble. I went for it and got the local Albin.
Check out the photo. Ain't she a beauty? My research and experience dictated I needed an economical and safe boat. These boats average under a gallon of fuel per hour! That's less than $3 per hour!! These Albins come from a long Swedish heritage of being efficient and safe. The original Albin 25Family Cruiser was designed and made in Sweden where marine conditions are notably rougher than around here. It proved so successful it was shipped all over, including to the US, where Albin finally opened its own manufacturing facility in Conneticuit, and began the "improved" and bigger Albin 27, my boat. I simply fell in love with this boat's design.
Because I love this boat so much I know it will be hard to write without prejudice about it, but here goes: It's safe! The boat goes at displacement speeds- that's 6 to 9 mph- pushing the water aside rather than riding up on top of it- called planing. That's the same speed as some $2,000,000 cabin cruisers make as they crosss the Atlantic. No one will ski behind it, but we can live with it. The boat has a high freeboard- or gunnel- from the water, which translates to a less likely chance of someone falling off it. (Notice how high the sides of the boat are from the water? That means if you are standing or seated it would be pretty hard to fall off this boat.) These boats regurlarly go across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas, etc. to vacation. They are famous for taking bad weather and waves and surviving. It's hard to capsize one. This Albin 27 has a complete galley- a sink with pressurized cold and hot water. An icebox is built into the cabinet that we may use as a trash can because our Albin even has a refrigerator back in the aft cabin! A full head with sink, toilet and shower is in the main cabin. And there you will find a small eating settee and V-berths for two to sleep. Back in the aft cabin are two twin sized berths, lots of storage, and the forementioned refrigerator (that can double as a freezer.) Besides that refrigerator addition, and the added water heater, this Albin has an added space heater to the pilothouse area, so if we close that area off with canvas, we can heat it and the main cabin too. Nice. There's even a third battery just for the refrigerator that has its own solar collector I can attach to the roof and use to extend the battery's charge during anchoring-out times. Haven't tried it yet. Haven't tried the nice air conditioner yet either. It attaches over the front hatch when at dock and cools the main cabin area. Haven't tried putting up all the canvas that came with this boat. It encloses everything in back under the hardtop. The cxtension to the hardtop you see going back to the aft cabin cost the previous owners over $3000 extra, and keeps rain and sun off the boat's occupants riding back there. It has two drawbacks: it makes me have to slightly duck my head- since I'm 6'3", and it makes it a little harder to fish from that area. I thought aloud about removing it, and the boat surveyor, overhearing me, said to leave it for at least one season to see how much we appreciated it doing its job.
I could go on an on about this boat. But that isn't the point of this blog. It is to point out to the reader to set attainable goals, do thorough research on what you want to achieve, and to have patience with that goal's attainment. I shudder to think of some of the places we could have ended up living if we'd made a hasty decision; Lake Lanier, above Atlanta, seemed nice until I did some research and found out just why there were so many For Sale signs! That water is drying up and many docks have no water for months at a time, as a growing Atlanta and points south demand more and more from it. And what's left in that huge lake is polluted and getting worse every year. I could have bought another "go-fast" boat just like so many have. I see them every day sitting "on the hard" at my local marina, rarely if ever being used because of the expense of today's gasoline. I know almost all boats are "a hole in the water into which you pour money." Mine probably won't be any different. But until that motor finally gives up and dies, we're goin' boating on the cheap! See ya on the water! Next goal? To make a professional recording of my songs.
Without goals in life, I'd be living without hope for the future. I try to make my goals realistic, within my grasp and abilities. I'm no brain surgeon or rocket scientist, for sure. So I've always aimed for attainable goals. Retiring to our spot on the water was one of those. Acquiring the "perfect boat" for such a spot was another.
I researched hard on the internet to find different areas on the water that were affordable for a retired teacher on a pension. I looked for close to 5 years, using dial-up web service- all we could afford! (Realtor.com became an almost daily visit.) That's hundreds of hours of waiting for pictures of homes to download, enough to drive an ordinary man to distraction- or worse. But I have an uncanny ability to be pretty patient. Don't get me wrong, I have a temper, and have my limits of frustration. Teaching the slower students as well as the bright ones has taught me patience, I think. If you want results from the slower pupil, ya got to be patient. It will come, but at an entirely different speed than the average student. (One of our key weaknesses in public education is that there are usually no special classes for the kids with verbal I.Q.'s in the 70 - 89 range, too smart for "Special Ed." classes- below 70 I.Q.- and struggling to keep up with average and brighter kids.) So to be an effective (and compassionate) teacher I learned to have lots of patience.
Debbie and I spent almost every vacation looking at homes. We started with the ideal location, Hawaii, where I was born. We even went back there for 24 days and really looked hard at homes, living as cheaply as possible without camping on the beaches. It was almost heartbreaking to come to the realization that it just wasn't a practical place to retire. We could only do it if we both worked two jobs. Some retirement! But if ya got the bucks, that's the place to go, if you think you wouldn't suffer from "Island Fever"- an itching to get off the island and back to bigger spaces, and friends and family on the mainland. Oh, by the way- don't waste your time on Oahu, my home island, and home to close to a million inhabitants. They have traffic jams, gangs, murders, and all the problems that come with living in close proximity. The Big Island- Hawaii- has some nice areas, more like small oasises among the bare lava flows that stretch for miles. It even has some affordable housing. But look out for buying home insurance; the Big Island has the only active volcanos in the archepeligo. That's the principle reason housing is affordable on that island. Maui is supposed to be nice, but local folk from Kauai tell me it's more for the "flaky Hollywood types" who only stay for two years or so, then move on, usually selling most of their furniture at garage sales that local Kauaiians grab up and resell back home. Look elsewhere, even for a brief visit. I can only recommend the island of Kauai, the northernmost island. It's called "The Garden Island" for a reason; it's the greenest of all Hawaian islands. It's where Hollywood loves to come and film Jurrasic Park, South Pacific, and even the fantastic TV show- Lost. It really reminds me of Daytona Beach around 1964. It's quiet, has few nightclubs that stay open past 9 PM, and many folks there are sort of "spiritual" in nature, very much into healthy lifestyles. Kauai has almost everything you could ask for, except a lively nightlife! The sidwalks sort of "roll up" around dark-thirty there. But no big crowds, very low crime rate, only a brief traffic jam around quittin' time, and it's an outdoors paridise! It's the ONE place in the US you should visit before you die. No kidding! (Just try and do it while you can still go kyacking and snorkling. You don't want to just be a wallflower at this dance.) If I ever win the lottery- guess where we'll head for? If you go to Kauai, and you see a middleaged White fella playing exceptional guitar left-handed, ask him his name. If his nick-name is "Lefty"- tell him Mike Upchurch, a fella he briefly befriended back in 2000, says hi.
So Deb and I checked out Key West. Save your money. Way too hot and expensive. The limited variety of terrain bothered me. It's just not green enough! And Key West of the present is not the Key West of Jimmy Buffet's old songs from the '70's. We looked at Norfolk, Virginia- way too crowded, the Northern Neck, and south along the coast until we hit Beaufort, South Carolina. Had to be the hottest, most humid spot we'd ever visited, but had the most friendly people we'd seen anywhere. Strangers would just come up to us and ask how we were doin'! This wasn't just one person, but several. That impressed us. Since climate and crowds affected our preferences greatly, we headed north and found a town of almost the same name to be our favorite spot-Beaufort, North Carolina, but pronounced "bow-fert", not "beau-fert" as in South Carolina. Unfortunately Beaufort, NC, turned out to be too small, too historic, and way too expensive. Even our real estate salesperson was a snob!
We made concentric circles out from Beaufort, looking at nearby areas until we found New Bern. This was it: perfect size -but growing perhaps too fast now, lots of history and beauty, lots of waterfront with deep water access for bigger boats, affordability, and nice climate. We went back home and I started focusing my web searches for a year on the New Bern area. Then we saw it: a home on Realtor.com that had one of those "virtual views"- a series of photos stitched together to give you the impresasion of turning slowly and viewing whole rooms, yards, docks, etc. It was in our price range on deep water on a beautiful creek that led to a nice wide river and out to the ocean. Perfect! We bought it and one goal was reached, our retirement home had been found. It only took 5 years of looking and patience.
The next goal was to put the right boat at our dock on Brices Creek. Our new home came with a boat, a SeaRay 21 foot openbow, basically a ski boat. I told the previous owner it would do us until I could get what I wanted- a small cabin cruiser. Unfortunately the motor in that boat died within a couple months of our moving in, and since a replacement motor would cost too much, I sold the boat on its trailer. Just a few trips out into the Neuse in that boat showed me I couldn't afford a V8 gas engine's thirst. It cost us $40 worth of gas for just one hour on the water, and that was when gas was way under $3 per gallon. I knew diesel motors were in my future.
I'd been researching small cabin cruisers for years on the internet, reading what others had said about theirs and others' boats. I can't remember exactly when I first heard of the Albin 25 and 27 aft-cabin cruisers. But what I had read must have excited some degree of passion in me because I immediately signed up to be a member of the (Yahoo) Albin Users Group online. I lurked online reading daily posts to this users group for over 4 years before I ever made my presence known by posting my first "letter" to the group. That was just 3 weeks ago. I made my first posting because I then felt for the first time I was actually a member of their group- I had bought my first Albin!
Because of sheer poverty, waiting for our Virginia home to sell, I had to wait for 3 years to get the boat I wanted. Patience again. In that time we made do with a small 16 foot sailboat for short excursions onto the water. It's my dad's old boat, a 1976 Advance StoAway cuddy cabin sailboat. I put a 4 hp Yamaha four stroke outboard on the back and we could motor down Brices Creek until we got under the bridge and out onto the Trent River. Then we could raise the mast and the sails, if the wind wasn't too strong- or too light! Using that little boat helped us maintain our sanity while waiting for the "right" boat. Then I found it: an Albin 27 aft-cabin for sale nearby in Oriental, NC! But this was in November '06, back before we'd sold our home, so we couldn't afford to buy it. I bet I checked that boat's status every day, just knowing someone would beat me to it. Then our house sold, and my lovely wife gave me permission to check the Albin out.
I did everything right- I thought. I hired a boat surveyor and a mechanic to check the boat. I paid nicely for a boat yard to haul it out so the bottom could be inspected carefully. Basically I invested $378 for the survey and $185 for the motor checkup, a total of $563 for a boat I didn't even own! What I learned was this: Hire the mechanic first! If the motor doesn't check out, and the cost of fixing or replacing the engine/ transmission is too high, why pay for the haul-out and survey? I learned the boat was sound, in great shape for an old gal made in 1984. But the engine (a Ford/Pugeot Lehman 4D61) was a bit long in the tooth, and basically obsolete. My mechanic never said that. He gave it a clean bill of health. I went home and researched the engine online and found out it was obsolete. Parts are getting hard to find, and pricy if you can find them at all! So I had to make a decision: either wait for another Albin like this (but with a newer engine) to come up for sale locally- which could take years, pay a captain to pilot one to me from Maine or Key West- at an additional fee of thousands of dollars, have one shipped overland on a custom trailer- again for thousands more, or get the one available now and locally and take a chance on the motor living up to its reputation of longitivity. Life is a gamble. I went for it and got the local Albin.
Check out the photo. Ain't she a beauty? My research and experience dictated I needed an economical and safe boat. These boats average under a gallon of fuel per hour! That's less than $3 per hour!! These Albins come from a long Swedish heritage of being efficient and safe. The original Albin 25Family Cruiser was designed and made in Sweden where marine conditions are notably rougher than around here. It proved so successful it was shipped all over, including to the US, where Albin finally opened its own manufacturing facility in Conneticuit, and began the "improved" and bigger Albin 27, my boat. I simply fell in love with this boat's design.
Because I love this boat so much I know it will be hard to write without prejudice about it, but here goes: It's safe! The boat goes at displacement speeds- that's 6 to 9 mph- pushing the water aside rather than riding up on top of it- called planing. That's the same speed as some $2,000,000 cabin cruisers make as they crosss the Atlantic. No one will ski behind it, but we can live with it. The boat has a high freeboard- or gunnel- from the water, which translates to a less likely chance of someone falling off it. (Notice how high the sides of the boat are from the water? That means if you are standing or seated it would be pretty hard to fall off this boat.) These boats regurlarly go across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas, etc. to vacation. They are famous for taking bad weather and waves and surviving. It's hard to capsize one. This Albin 27 has a complete galley- a sink with pressurized cold and hot water. An icebox is built into the cabinet that we may use as a trash can because our Albin even has a refrigerator back in the aft cabin! A full head with sink, toilet and shower is in the main cabin. And there you will find a small eating settee and V-berths for two to sleep. Back in the aft cabin are two twin sized berths, lots of storage, and the forementioned refrigerator (that can double as a freezer.) Besides that refrigerator addition, and the added water heater, this Albin has an added space heater to the pilothouse area, so if we close that area off with canvas, we can heat it and the main cabin too. Nice. There's even a third battery just for the refrigerator that has its own solar collector I can attach to the roof and use to extend the battery's charge during anchoring-out times. Haven't tried it yet. Haven't tried the nice air conditioner yet either. It attaches over the front hatch when at dock and cools the main cabin area. Haven't tried putting up all the canvas that came with this boat. It encloses everything in back under the hardtop. The cxtension to the hardtop you see going back to the aft cabin cost the previous owners over $3000 extra, and keeps rain and sun off the boat's occupants riding back there. It has two drawbacks: it makes me have to slightly duck my head- since I'm 6'3", and it makes it a little harder to fish from that area. I thought aloud about removing it, and the boat surveyor, overhearing me, said to leave it for at least one season to see how much we appreciated it doing its job.
I could go on an on about this boat. But that isn't the point of this blog. It is to point out to the reader to set attainable goals, do thorough research on what you want to achieve, and to have patience with that goal's attainment. I shudder to think of some of the places we could have ended up living if we'd made a hasty decision; Lake Lanier, above Atlanta, seemed nice until I did some research and found out just why there were so many For Sale signs! That water is drying up and many docks have no water for months at a time, as a growing Atlanta and points south demand more and more from it. And what's left in that huge lake is polluted and getting worse every year. I could have bought another "go-fast" boat just like so many have. I see them every day sitting "on the hard" at my local marina, rarely if ever being used because of the expense of today's gasoline. I know almost all boats are "a hole in the water into which you pour money." Mine probably won't be any different. But until that motor finally gives up and dies, we're goin' boating on the cheap! See ya on the water! Next goal? To make a professional recording of my songs.
1 comment:
So Mike has now become an official blogger. I am not sure, but was that a sign of the apocalypse? I think it was just before the moon turning to red as blood, but I will have to look it up.
Kidding. It's was great to hear from you Mike. I don't call as often as I would like and I have been slacking on my music emails of late because of basketball. The kids are both playing on several teams and I am coaching a 5/6 grade girls team (who is undefeated).
Your boat looks sweet and if there was ever a guy who deserved the achieve all this goals, you would be near the top of a very short list.
Hope to contribute more later when I get caught up a bit.
Take care.
brian
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