A week of Privilege (literally and figuratively)

In June we had the great opportunity to spend a week in the British and U.S. Virgin Islands.  Five of those days were on a boat.  Not just any boat.  A super luxurious, super cool catamaran!

For the first five days we were on a Privilege Catamaran that was a 50’ long owners version.  Super high quality and comfortable.  For those unfamiliar with catamarans, I’ll give you the run down.  A catamaran is different from a normal (monohull) sailboat in that it uses to separate smaller hulls to sit in the water across the top of which is a deck.  (I am foregoing nautical jargon) In the picture below you can see the entry stairs at the back. 

That whole area outside and under the awning is called the cockpit. Largely, it is a social area that includes a fridge and grill.  That half table folds out to be a full dining table. That is a beer and wine cooler in the center of the table.  And, up a few steps you can see the helm where you drive.  The controls for the two engines and all sails are right at that seat, along with all navigational aids.

Inside, under the awning through the door is called the saloon (like the old western movie bar where there is always a poker game and bar that only serves whiskey), which is the living room and kitchen. Spacious, comfortable, dining table for 8, plus radios, fuse boxes, and other boat stuff.

  On either side of the saloon are stairs down into the two hulls.  In the back of each hull is a queen size bed, bathroom and shower.  The entire front is the master bedroom/bathroom/shower.  Also, under all floor are access panels to storage and systems.  

The master cabin is huge.  The only problem is that at 6’1”, the head height became a problem for me.

The verdict- wow, pretty awesome and confirmed that we are on a solid path for a retirement plan provided we remain healthy and all goes well (fingers crossed). Everybody loved living on the boat. Plenty of room (unexpected), fun, and nobody got bored or felt confined.  (Also unexpected with four teenagers!)

Miami Boat Show 2019!

So, per usual, I am 6 months behind.  My apologies, it takes that long to make the gifs from scratch.  (Total BS)

More boat on the brain ramblings!  Yay.



Teresa and I had to be in Atlanta the same week for work.  Generally, we try not to be out of town (San Fran for those of you behind the curve) at the same time.  Although our kids are old enough to care for themselves in theory, I saw Risky Business and pretty much ever teen-party-gone-wrong movie, so they remain supervised.  (There may also have been that one incident in 1986 when my parents were out of town. Hey, Jimmy, if I did not thank you for helping me put up new panelling in the basement before my parents got home -thanks again).

Since we would be in the Southeast and the Miami boat show just happened to coincide with our trip (suspicious or auspicious), a detour to Miami sounded good.   So, we asked one of our favorite relatives if she would hang out with the kids while we were out of town and she was kind (foolish) enough to say yes.

Three main events worth noting while in Miami.

First, we had dinner with my aunt who is 90, spry as hell, and still working.  She has always been active and remains in great shape.  She is an inspiration for what being 90 could be.  She drives herself to work, walks good distances, and continues to have her wits fully about her.  Nice to see that aging need not be a miserable experience!!

(not my aunt- but same spryness level)

Second, we had a great time at the boat show.
 Seriously, great.  I’ll provide more detail below, but we inspected in detail several catamarans that we would consider purchasing as a vacation home (if kept in the British Virgin Islands, etc) and eventually a live-aboard for a circumnavigation.   In a day and a half, we are down to two main contenders.  That was solid work!

Third, we had a blast with Myra and Al (geez, hope I got his name right.  If not, perhaps he should not have ordered the post dinner drinks).  Teresa and Myra went to college together and just recently reconnected.  I met her and her family (Al, and two brilliant daughters) once before when we and the kids were in Miami.  This time it was just the adults and it was great.  Some people are hard to get to know and you struggle for conversation.

Others are the dangerous sort.  You fall into a series of conversations like you have known them for years and things can go off the rails.

 We managed to enjoy ourselves, eat a fantastic meal at Randazzo’s on Key Biscayne, and suffer relatively minor hangovers.  (I highly recommend this place if you are in the neighborhood and can get in.)

So, the boat show.
Walking around a boat show is a bit like being stuck in the maze of the Overlook Hotel.  If you don't get the reference google it, go watch it and be ashamed.


All of the catamarans were nice.  We saw boats by the following builders: Lagoon, Fountaine Pajot, St. Francis, Antares,  Royal Cape Marine, Privilege, Xquisite, Knysa, and Seawind. When you board them, they are all nice.  As you inspect them thinking about owning them, living on them and fixing them, some differences emerge.  We noticed this at the last few boat shows as well and as a result stopped looking at a couple of brands.  We want quality components, solid structures, plumbing that is accessible and makes sense, well labeled electrical systems, and, of course, we need to love it.

For us, the most likely boats we would want to own are the X5 by Xquisite Yachts and the Privilege Series 5.   Both are high quality throughout.  I looked in every nook and cranny, checked the wiring, mechanical spaces, and storage compartments.  Each of these is a real contender.  We really liked Seawind as well, but their 50’ boat is not available in the U.S. (we saw it in France).  

Next, we need to test them.   We already scheduled a short vacation on a Privilege in June (due to my delay in this post, that vacation already happened.  It was fantastic as was the boat. A blog post to follow within the next decade)  Will follow up that vacation with another post- even though I am pretty sure I am talking to myself.  After that, we'll shoot for a test of the X5 and Seawind.

As I am about to post this we are just a couple of weeks out from the Annapolis boat show. We will see a few boats there that we have yet to inspect, and poke around the X5 and Privilege a bit more.

Please "follow" and "like" this post.  It helps feed my ego.

Another Year - Another Blog Post

5 am.   Wife and kids are asleep.   Dogs are asleep.  East-coast guests are asleep, though there is a significant danger that they will soon be awake since it is 830 on their internal clocks. 

I woke, as I often do, to dog poop in the kitchen.  Argh!!   Our little French Bulldog is an untrainable mess.

Despite the new dog-door she enjoys using during the day, late night pooping in one area of the kitchen has become her thing.  And, of course, since it is “late night pooping” nobody is awake to tell her “NO” as she squats to poop by the stove.  I do not think she will make a good pet on a sailboat.  I keep telling her that she needs to impress me before the move, but not sure she is getting it.  Perhaps if I show her this pic and explain that the life jacket is optional?

Harry, the old English bulldog is a senior citizen and continues to be awesome.  Added bonus, he has not pooped or peed in the house more than 10 times in 9 years!

But I digress.   

We sold the Atlanta house to a friend whose office and kids’ school were very close to us.  So, the Atlanta Bonder-osa has passed to a new family.  One selling point was that he knew that every improvement we made to that house was with the expectation that I would live out my entire life and eventually drop dead in the place.  That same commitment to making sure house was solid, had the best floors, appliances, etc. also makes us miss the place.  But, I should have known the plan would not stand the test of time since none have yet!

Moving is rough on the whole family, but exciting as well.  The kids seem to be doing well, making friends, getting good grades, etc.  They complain and speak longingly about Atlanta, but I don’t think this is so very different than what they would do in Atlanta at 13 and 15 years old.  Those are rough ages. Because the little buggers are too old for play-dates and the neighborhood non-competitive soccer league (oh, and because they now have a will of their own), we parents are forced to (gasp) make friends without using the kids as a crutch.

Luckily, Tiburon is a friendly small town and we met some folks.  So, when the lease on the rental house expired, we bought a house of our very own and stayed in Tiburon.  We are still very near the town center of Tiburon, but  with a different view and a slightly longer walk to town, the ferry, etc.    But, we are very happy with the new location.  

Although I grew up near the water in Queens, I never really thought about it.  Even when I was “hanging out” down by the jetty outside of Fort Totten and looking at the Throgs Neck Bridge (worst name for a bridge ever)

or walking along the path to the sole Zaxxon machine 

at the Douglaston Driving Range (this really makes me think I am too hard on my kids about video games),

I just never thought about the water.  But now, being near the water and seeing it is incredibly relaxing.  Something about it is calms the soul, and brings daily small issues into perspective.   So, bottom line, the move was a great thing thus far and I am very happy with the trade offs from land locked Atlanta.  

So, now that water is an ever present reality and I am still hopeful that our retirement will being by living on a boat and traveling the world.  Toward that lofty end, we spend time making sure we are competent sailors!  

We sail routinely around the San Francisco Bay (considered a challenging area to sail, so very good practice) on a variety of boats.  

Luckily, by joining the local sailing club we also met a bunch of super nice folks who enjoy sailing, drinking wine with Teresa (I sip my beer in a haughty fashion, swirl it around the bottle, and talk about its floral notes just to be a jerk), and are quickly becoming good friends.  

When the sound of wind is the only “motor” moving the boat and I am contently staring at the sea lions (as they contently stare at me),

I realize how incredibly far I am from the teenage kid that was dragged to a boat at the World’s Fair Marine by my dad largely for manual labor.

To be fair, I have no idea what the World’s Fair Marina is like now, but even without the constant rotten-egg sewage smell in the 80s, it was a pretty awful spot just under the runway of LaGuardia airport. . I remember thinking that we were in danger every time we motored passed Riley’s Island.  To be fair to the staff and prisoners on Riker’s Island, we were in far more danger from an alcohol induced boating accident than an escape, but the danger was real nevertheless.  

Teresa and I also continue to have a great time looking at catamarans as an eventual new home.  In April we took an awesome trip to the south of France for the La Grande Motte Catamaran Boat show.  We immediately felt welcomed as we drove out of the airport, though I am not sure what the message here really was.

We decided to skip the spa visit and head to our hotel in Nice, France.

After a few days of exploring Nice, we headed over to La Grande Motte, a funky little seashore town that must have sprung up in the 70s.



The catamaran variety was astounding.

We really fell for the Privilege Series 5 catamaran.   We will visit the brand, and many others, again soon at the Miami boat show.  But for now, Privilege is a clear leader in our thought process.  

To close out this post I will share my favorite moment of the trip.  As some of you may know, Teresa “speaks” French.  That’s is, when in college she was fluent and lived in France for a semester.  Shoot forward xx years, and she confidently ordered a lovely fish lunch in the ancient walled city we were visiting, Of course, if this were xx years ago she would have known that the words she used were for some sort of alien being with tentacles.   She was a good sport, but I suspect her laughter in this picture was really at me laughing so hard that I could not breath.

Fast forward the hard way

So since the last post Teresa accepted the position AND MOVED!!   Alston-Raids-Reed-Smith-MoFo-for-New-San-Francisco-Office


Teresa moved to San Fran in March, but visited a lot.  We visited her a bunch too. In the short term we rented a house in Tiburon with great views.

The house is in a beautiful and quiet area known generally as Tiburon.  Within Tiburon, we learned, there are actually several other areas.  Tiburon is the cute little town near the ferry and home to Sam’s Anchor Cafe, the popular deck/dock.  (Sam’s live feed is here:https://samscafe.com/c/sams-camera.html) 

As you look east from Tiburon your neck cranes up a significant hill onto Corinthian Island, which is where we live.  So 135 uneven stairs up from Sam’s is our area.  Lovely houses that all look small from the street, but actually go down the side of the hills.  While not huge, they have beautiful views.  The next island over, which is also visible from Sam’s, is Belvedere Island.  Another micro neighborhood with crazy windy street, beautiful homes and fantastic views.

This pic is Corinthian Island (our house not shown):

Since moving here we have focused on kids and school, sailing, and normalizing life as much as possible.   As to the kids, they still claim to be homesick and probably are homesick.  But, they have friends, activities, and are fitting in to their new schools nicely.   Sam has a wide group of friends, goes out in the neighborhood when homework is done, and is on the Redwood High School Mock Trial Team.   Ella has a good group of friends at school, is in the advanced guitar class (she and one middle school senior are the “advanced” class), and is part of a small singing group she started with the help of cousin Emily.   

Emily is our super talented cousin (http://www.operaonthespot.com/artists/#/charlotte-stowe/) who lives in SF, but visits with us Mondays and Fridays.  When not with us, she is a music and singing teacher, founder of Opera on the Spot, an Opera Perfomance Company that performs around SF.  Emily and Ella got a good group of local kids together and they sing on Fridays.   Hopefully this will grow into a performance opportunity.  But, even if not the singers are all having a great time.

As for the sailing, I joined Modern Sailing, which is a club in Sausalito.  I take classes and get to charter boats.  Weekends are crazy busy, so I try to go out with guys who have time during their week.  Tuesdays seem to work well.  We sail around the SF Bay and practice sailing techniques, sail trim, etc.  The goal is to become a truly proficient sailor.

Here are a couple of pics from sailing in the bay with new found friends. 

Next step -for my 50th birthday Teresa and I are heading to a boat show.  The Multihull (Catamaran) Boat Show in La Grande Motte, France!!  This will be a great opportunity to see catamarans from all over the world and get detailed information about them.  We have a few test sails already booked so we can narrow our choices down as a retirement platform.

Stay tuned for more.  Comments are welcome.  If the blog is at all amusing, please share too.  Not sure if I am just typing to myself here.

Boat lessons

The boat saga continues.  I convinced Sam that the cost of diesel would end up limiting our desire to use a motorboat.  Plus, we could probably get a cool sailboat and a dinghy with a powerful motor to satisfy his need for speed.  The girls also started to indulge us and participate in the discussions about sailing.  Then they inserted their bit of practicality - none of us know how to sail.

Well, that brought us to a momentary stand still.

But wait- there's more.  We had no plans the week between Christmas and New Years.  We usually take some form of road trip around that time.   That jump started my mental process.

So, I planned a trip to take sailing lessons in late December.   We took a family trip (nanny included) to Marina Del Ray and took the most basic sailing lessons available under the American Sailing Association's curriculum.    We had a fantastic trip, a great instructor, and a ton of fun sailing.   

Sam, Teresa and I took the written exam and all passed.  Ella refused to take an exam on a holiday trip, opting instead to go for a pedicure with Emma, the nanny.

So, now three of us knew the basics of sailing (very very basic) and all four of us had a great time.  Sailing is sounding even better.  Once again, sailing pops up as a possible answer to "what will we do when we retire."

Picked an area and went to a boat show

It turns out moving across country will require more than just looking at boats.  Hmm.   We started looking for places to live in SF.  We  spent a few very long days walking around in town SF.  Cool houses.  Dirty neighborhoods.  Lots of homeless.  I am not adverse to those things and like the idea of the kids moving to a more urban environment as a contrast to our home in Atlanta.  But, schools are a serious issue.  As new folks to SF it would be nearly impossible to get our kids into good private schools.  To even give it a real effort would require that we force our kids to take the SSAT, which means a lot of tutoring every week in addition to regular school work. And, they will have to fly out to SF often for the various interviews.  Nope, not willing to do it. So, we looked at surrounding areas.   East Bay is a suburb.  Same as suburbs in Atlanta.  Too similar.  Not worth moving because it won't actually offer a new adventure, just the same lifestyle in a different spot.   Then we visited Tiburon.  Across the Golden Gate Bridge.  Very different feel.  Lots of boats, bike riders, runners.  Very small town.  Teresa could take a ferry to work most days.  Hmm. We looked online at houses in Tiburon.  One house had a dock.  That led to the discussion of boats over breakfast.  Hmm. Long story short -Tiburon here we come.   We don't yet have a house and nothing is set in stone, but that is our desired destination for this new adventure. That led to Sam and me wanting to know more about boarts.  Then it led to an awesome father/son trip to the Ft. Lauderdale boat show.  Huge jump there from sort of thinking about boats to a boat show- but that is reality here in our house.  We get an idea and then jump in with two feet pretty quickly. Sam a had a blast!! Power boats, sailboats, catamarans, and a huge number of accessories that looked cool even if we did not entirely understand their function.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, Sam and I became obsessed with boats as something we could focus on as a family if we moved to SF.  He wanted a super yacht.  I focused more and more on sailboats.  The difference, he was unfettered by reality while I considered both cost of the boat and of the diesel to run it.  Plus, having grown up on powerboats I am just not that interested.  They strike me more as just another means of conveyance like my car or motorcycle while there is something primitive and cool about a sailboat in my mind. So my thoughts began to run rampant.  Maybe we could get a house with a dock.  Maybe the kids would join the school sailing teams. Wait, what, the schools have sailing teams???  COOL. There is a yacht club in Tiburon (SF's oldest), so perhaps I could fulfill my life long dream of wearing white pants and a blue blazer with boat shoes!!

Awesome!

 

This new adventure may be really fun!