About 13 years ago we bought an old, fixer-upper yacht. I can call it a yacht because of its size…44 feet long. She was in mighty sad condition but her fiberglass hull was sound and the previous owners had recently put in new drapes throughout. That and the fact that she showed such potential were strong selling features. We set about the task of redoing the old and making her look like new. Money and a butt load full of elbow grease accomplished our goal over the years. She lived up on Lake Texoma where we spent much of our time.
After 10 years, some health issues and the economy became reasons to sell. The cost of insurance, slip fees and the price of gasoline were all draining us. The new owners moved the boat to a marina on Lake Lewisville.
Ken missed the boat terribly, as did I, but he went so far as to use her picture as a screen saver on his PC. He also checked boat ads almost daily just to see what was still out there on the market. Recently, he stumbled across a listing by a boat broker down in Florida. There were a few pictures of a cabin cruiser that looked much like our old boat. After contacting the broker, Ken learned it was indeed our old girl and she was still living on Lake Lewisville but was in foreclosure. The price was a fraction of what we had sold for. Ken wasted no time in contacting the broker on this end and arranged for us to go see her. We brought along a friend who had always said he wanted a boat like ours and might consider buying at this low price.
Disheartened hardly describes how we all felt at first sight. Our old love was like a ghost ship! She’d been stripped of everything. The steering wheels at both stations, lower and upper fly bridge, were gone as well as the brand new 6 through-bolted seats on the bridge. The ice maker had been torn out. A glass patio table and chairs had been removed from the aft deck. The anchor was missing, for Pete’s sake! The inside was worse. All the carpet had been torn up, a couch, 2 chairs and a high-low table were gone. Two central air-conditioning units and their duct work had disappeared, just to name a few things. It was a major shock to all of us. Small wonder the price was so low. And small wonder our friend walked away having lost interest.
Now I’m switching gears to tell you about some wood paneling Ken listed on Craig’s List. (Bear with me.) There were 4 pieces of 4X8 ft. ash which didn’t sell at our garage sale last month. Ken had bought the wood to use up on the boat dock to make storage bins but never got around to it. A man in the Lewisville area saw the ad and bought the wood. He arranged to come over in his truck and pick it up. He and Ken got to talking out in the garage while I was in the kitchen.
All of a sudden my husband came storming through the door which led from the garage into the kitchen. “Drop everything right now,” he demanded. “Come out to the garage with me. Hurry up! Hurry!” He looked at the man and said, “Tell my wife what you just told me.” The gentleman said, “I’ll do better than that. A picture’s worth a thousand words.” He was paging across his cell phone and then stopped. He turned the screen toward me and there was a picture of our old boat! He went on to explain that he had just recently purchased the boat from the bank and he was in the process of fixing her up! The man was buying the wood to use on his boat dock! What are the odds of that?!!!
Originally published in the June 2012 issue of The Cross Timbers Gazette.
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