We move our boat more than use our boat

As you may remember, we have been struggling to figure out what to do with our boat in New Mexico. We’ve had it in dry dock storage near Lake Mead, we’ve had it stored in Bernalillo, we’ve had it in a slip at the main marina in Navajo Lake but almost never used it and they kept getting our bill wrong and over charging us.

So we pulled it out of the water, but then we were sad that we didn’t have it in a slip ready to use, so we put it back into the same lake at the smaller marina last spring. Except we still only used it once or twice that year. And slips are expensive!

Our lease for the boat slip was over at the end of last year, but it’s not very feasible to pull a boat out in the ice and high winds of winter. The small marina is closed all winter until roughly the beginning of April, so we figured we could get away with leaving it there past the lease, as long as we had it out of there before the marina opened. We watched the weather all January and February, and finally in March we spotted a window of opportunity and went to fetch the boat.

We saw lots of wildlife and semi-wild-life on our drive out to Navajo Lake and back.

Barren, deserted marina in the winter…

Our boat looked fine.

Doesn’t it look lovely? Every time we pull our boat out I’m sad. But we had only used it once – maybe twice – that summer. The problem with summers in New Mexico is thunder & lightening, and strong, variable winds, which doesn’t mix well with boats, particularly sailboats with masts. It’s like you’re carrying your own lightening rod with you. How handy!

After checking to make sure the boat was there, we went to get the trailer. And there we encountered a problem. The lot where the trailer was stored was locked for the season and we didn’t have a key. We were not going to be able to get our boat out of the water if we couldn’t even get to our trailer!

It took some tugging, but we managed to pull and push the trailer by hand up from it’s parking place to the gate.

John had to remove the side guards, but then we could push it under the locked gate. Stealing our own trailer!

This marina ramp seems to be hard to use, but John managed to get the boat winched up onto the trailer

Then we got it “sealed.” This ensures that the boat isn’t carrying the invasive zebra mussels. There are none at Navajo lake, so as long as our boat isn’t used, we aren’t carrying zebra mussels. The inspections attendant locked a wire with a code between the boat and the trailer, and as long as that “seal” is intact, our boat is known to be mussel-free.

So yes, there was an inspector out there on that cold March day, even though the marina was closed for the winter. An inspector was on duty to make sure no boats were put into the water without an inspection to ensure no invasives were introduced into Navajo Lake. She had what must be the most boring job in the universe. She sat in her car all day, and probably never saw anyone launch a boat for weeks at a time during the winter.

Then John managed to get the boat up that long ridiculous driveway in Placitas and backed carefully in place, were it lived for a month or so until…it was time to get the house ready for sale.

We could have left the boat there while the house is on the market, but John and I both have perfectionist tendencies, and we were determined to get it move out of there before picture day.

We closed on the purchase of our new house just in time, and drove the boat down to Albuquerque to its new home. The new house has space for RV and boat parking, but it’s challenging to access, particularly when backing up a trailer. You have to back around a tight corner. Here is John trimming a tree at the corner of the house to make more room.

At that point we got stuck. The boat is inches from the wall, but John can’t turn anymore because of a huge juniper bush in the front yard.

John had a saw with him, so he set to hacking at the bush. Luckily I’m not a fan of this type of hedge anyway.

It was one of the first nice weekends of the year, and our new neighbors were all outside getting work done – and keeping an eye on the newcomers hacking at their front landscaping. I’m sure we made a great first impression!

We put a moving blanket over the newly exposed juniper branches, hoping to avoid scratching his new 4Runner. Unfortunately, scratches turned out to be the least of our worries.