Bust Out Another Thousand

Boats.  The old adage is "Bust Out Another Thousand" and it's frequently said that like a pool you're better off knowing someone with one than owning one yourself.  For us that wasn't quite the case, we were very fortunate to find a pretty solid (albeit ugly) old ski boat that served us faithfully for 3 years without putting anything but gas and 2stroke oil in it.

 

After a very stressful debacle our first time out involving a seized steering shaft and the person in the boat floating listlessly on the water being the only one able to drive the manual transmission 4Runner/trailer that was now blocking a very busy boat ramp (I won't even delve into the details of enlisting the help of a drunk old man who was blasting Lady Gaga out of his truck nor the fact that I was wearing an "I'm on a boat" t-shirt at the time), we had many fun times on the various lakes in our area as a family and were able to try and explore new things and areas which we really enjoyed.

Our purchase gave us the opportunity to learn how sore wakeboarding can make you as well as how much fun it is to fling your friends many feet in the air off a tube by making a u-turn over your own wake.

Buying an old beater also allowed us to make all of the typical boating mistakes without the high cost of depreciation and expensive repairs (if it still floats it's all good!) including running the prop into stuff (repeatedly), taking out the light stalk on the trailer, sending a friend cartwheeling through the cabin ripping a seat out of the floor due to unannounced rapid acceleration, and towing mistakes including backing into the garage door as well as suspected use of a 4cyl 4Runner as a tow vehicle for a short period of time...

Plus, best of all it had a Johnson. Seriously, click the link and watch the video, you take yourself too seriously if you think you're too mature to enjoy that.

In the end, we had to let her go due to the demands of a growing family and the fact that she would have sat in storage for 5-6 years before our girls got their sea legs and it didn't make sense to pay $80/mo in storage and insurance for it to sit outside and decay.  Plus this darn drought has sadly shut down just about all of the lakes in our area.

It was sad to see her go but we ended up getting $150 more than we paid which is off the charts in the realm of aquatic ROI especially if you factor in all the quality family time she allowed for.