January 2010

We did it!! As of yesterday afternoon we are the proud owners of a 1989 Sabre 34 Targa named Serendipity. The boat is gorgeous and I’m so excited to have it. What a step up from the Hunter! There’s enough headroom in the cabin for me to stand up, and a fully enclosed head so there won’t be any more accidents of falling off the porta-potty and through the ‘barely hiding you’ curtains in rough water (sorry, dad). This also means that there will actually be space to move around below deck without getting in the way of another person, or the one bag that was brought on board with that day’s lunch and other necessities. There is a full galley so now I can do more than just heat up canned soup, and there are even 3 sinks that actually spit out water. There are multiple places to sleep, and places where you can just sit and enjoy yourself without feeling like your in a rocking cave (my thoughts, not Matt’s).

I don’t want this to sound like a bashing of the Hunter, it was a great starter boat and we had some really good times on it. But moving up to the Sabre was like going from a tent in a rustic campground with water pumps and outhouses to a fully loaded RV at a lush RV resort. Ok, maybe not that big of a step, but it feels like it to me. This is a whole other world where I will want to spend time in the cabin as opposed to just the cockpit, and Matt won’t have to beg me to spend entire weekends on it without going home in the evening for a decent nights sleep. There are visions of taking her out for one or even two week excursions on Lake Michigan because now we can actually do that! (Although it would have been possible to do that in the Hunter, and people have crossed much larger bodies of water in much smaller boats, there was no way I was going to leave myself in that little thing in the middle of Lake Michigan should a storm come up) Matt and I had been talking about going to Milwaukee on a boat for quite some time, and even made plans with friends to do so in Serendipity before she was even purchased. Yes, the possibilities now seem endless.

That’s not to say we can just turn her key this spring and she’ll be ready to go. Despite the fact that the previous owners (the most recent one in particular) kept the boat in wonderful condition and with a million spare parts, there is still a lot of work we will need to complete before she’s ready to go in the water. Luckily this winter, and just about every one before, she’s being kept in a heated storage facility at Eldean’s in Holland, and that means we’ll have full access to work on her all through the winter and spring. The not so nice part about it? The price tag that comes with heated storage at one of the best marina’s in West Michigan. Ouch. We only had to pay half of the $2,800 fee since we didn’t become owners until half way through the winter, but what a way to start owning a more luxurious boat. I can already tell that this is going to eat up a lot more of our time and money than the Hunter ever could. One thing is for sure though, and I could tell this from the moment I first stepped on her,….. I’ve got a breathtaking new cabin on the lake!!

*If you want to see photos of our old Hunter 240, check them out here.

Tags: No tags

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.