As the old saying goes, the two happiest days of a boater’s life are the day they buy a boat & the day they sell it!  We were very happy they both occurred within only 1 1/2 months – buying our new Manta powercat & selling our PDQ.  Owning 2 boats is definitely something no one wants to do & something we couldn’t afford. An added complication was that our PDQ was still in Florida – which our insurance company will not insure with hurricane season approaching…

Here are a few photos to give you an idea of our new space

A tiny galley for a house, but a HUGE improvement for Lori

One of the nicer features of our new ride is this semi-enclosed cockpit with lots of air & light

Good friends pick you up for dinner – GREAT friends wait around for FedEx to deliver our new Ultra anchor to their house, bring it to us with champagne, toast our new boat AND take us out to dinner!

With a “quick” (6 week) 1,800 mile trip from St. Pete, FL to Deep River, CT we still sneaked in a stop at Carolina Beach, NC for Britt’s Donuts – priorities!

BUSTED! In 13 years of cruising, our first U.S. Coast Guard boarding. They were pretty chill & we (wisely) didn’t let them know they were impeding our Happy Hour after a long 90-mile day of cruising in the Chesapeake.

So far, we love our new boat with all our additional space, comfort & features. She’s much more stable both underway & at anchor. While I’ll miss not having a flybridge, the enclosed helm/cockpit is great underway, especially on cool mornings & on rainy days. Filling up our 500 gallon fuel tank is … painful, but surprisingly, we burn (only) 2 1/2 gallons of diesel per hour at 8 knots – the same as our old PDQ. However, we won’t speak of when we go 14 or 18 knots … yikes!

This summer will be extremely busy, with upgrades we wish to accomplish, along with upgrades being required by our insurance company. We hope to get-in some local cruising … after all of our chores are done!