options

Ok, here’s our status:

• Better Half has to go back to work.
• I have no time off (as I’m involved with too many projects at my work. I’d like to say I’m an important player in the grand scheme of Executive Life but I would be lying).
• Our Commune Living situation will soon be at an end.  (i.e., we are homeless. For reals.)
• We have been paying for an empty slip at our Marina for the past 3 months.
• Our boat is still in North Carolina in basically the same situation it’s been since we bought it (though the holes are repaired).

What are our options?

Well, we have been trying to get in touch with someone who will sail it up for us but to no avail.  Let’s put it on a truck and just bring the damn thing up here in two days!

We call trucking companies for quotes.  They take a long time getting back to us.  Really?  Don’t people want business?

I put our info on a shipping clearinghouse.  The next day I get a quote from someone who is “unverified” in their system but who has a pick-up truck and a smile.  The quote is ridiculously low.  Nope.  We are desperate to get it up here but not desperate enough that we would resort to crossing our fingers and hoping that all goes well.  Good Intentions will only get you as far as the first catastrophe.

We get bids that are ridiculously high, too.

Then, like Goldilocks, we get one that seems just right.  We contact the boatyard and ask for their help.  We need accurate measurements of the height in order to see how much this whole enterprise will truly cost.

To measure they must re-sling the boat and straighten it out; for a fee, of course.  We give them the green light.  Measurements come back ok.  What doesn’t come back ok is the number of hours it would take to remove everything that would need to be removed in order to transport it.  Two guys working for two days equals how much?

Those plans come to a halt.

So, we sit and quietly freak out.