Moving to the new marina required some perspective re-adjustment: the boats here aren't anything at all like I'm used to seeing. Especially not within arm's length.
I mean, there's some huge yachts here ... the same boats used for the cover shots of glossy boating magazines. I'm talking boats capable of crossing oceans without stopping for re-fueling and yes, even boats big enough to land helicopters on their foredecks (the aft deck being reserved for the Range Rover).
There's multi-million dollar trawlers piloted here from California, 80-foot sailboats with decks like bowling alleys, brand new catmarans that look like lunar landing modules and daily-polished long-range cruisers with uniform-wearing full-time live aboard crews.
But even the plain white-bread boats, like the 40- to 60-footers, sport state-of-the-art toys and accouterments, like:
27" HDTV satellite dome- $7500 plus install
Satellite Telephone Dome- $5500 plus install
72" 4kw open-array radar- $8800 plus install
Back-up 3kw Diesel Generator- about $8000 plus install
Not to mention fuel cost for a generic 50-ft boat cruising along on 2 engines: about $160 per hour
So a 14-hour boating weekend (that's 4 hours on Friday and Sunday, 6 hours on Saturday) costs about $2240 bucks. (In case you're wondering: Nope, Calypso has not left her slip since I got here, not even once.)
After I'd ooh-ed and aah-ed the first few weeks I started noticing something peculiar.
Seems that a boat can have $50,000 of gee-whiz electronics and $10,000 bucks' worth of the latest cold cathode fluorescent accent lights flowing down its polished teak staircase, strictly for show ... yet nary a life raft to be found. But then a brand-new, basic life raft is $2000.
What's with the life raft shortage?
For the person with the kind of disposal cash to afford a sleek head-turning yacht, it must be that the prospect of catching fire, capsizing, punching a rock through the hull or otherwise being forced to wake up their friends, wives, and children in the middle of the night to announce that it's time to Abandon Ship! and go for a swim in the ocean is too inconvenient, or embarrassing, to warrant wasting the bucks.
Especially when a new plasma TV for the guest bathroom can be had for the same price ... in dollars, anyway.
