Day 12 Bradenton to Venice Monday January 29, 2018

Day 12  Bradenton  to Venice Monday January 29, 2018


We stayed in Brandenton in the Hampton Inn - Faye's favorite chain - and mine too. The inn was the old hotel in "downtown" that has been renovated. It was very nice.

Today was mostly boat looking day. The first boat was a Symbol 54. I should have taken a picture of the outside - but it was out of the water and in a shed and having some work done on it. But it was huge. I an sure that it was much bigger than the "54" feet that it was labeled. It was nice but expensive.

The next boats we looked at were the Carver 53 and 52 that we had tried to see earlier - but didn't - but allowed us to scout out the marina .

I will back track slightly and tell you a funny story. When we were visiting the marina several days ago we saw a McKinna 48 - a boat that we wanted to inspect. There was someone on it so I said hello. He looked at my hat with "Maine" on it and said "Are you from Maine?' Yup. Where? Portland but we keep a boat in Boothbay. Well what do you know We have our condo in Boothbay. And he proceeded to go and fetch his "Boothbay Harbor' hat - just like the one I have. And his name was Ron.

He and wife Julie were kind enough to invite us aboard and show us around. It was nice but there were things that I didn't like. Glad to be able to check it off the list.  But they couldn't say enough good things about the Marina. Another vote for staying here next winter.

And now back to today - We first looked at the Carver 53. In short Faye said this is the one!!. Not that boat in particular as it was not well taken care of - but the model. The salon and pilot house were the highlights. We also looked a Carver 52 - the newer version of the same boat but we didn't like it as much.

After our viewing we stopped at the office and picked up an application for reservation. Will call Jennifer as she was not in on Mondays.

So it was a productive day.

We drove down to Venice so we would be able to see friends Bob and Paula on Tuesday.