New home

When you want to move an object 23 feet wide, down a public highway, there are all sorts of things that come into play. The first one I discovered, you are not allowed to do this. The person in the permit office in Richmond I talked to said he could not issue a permit for such a wide load. Under no circumstances would he allow me to move the boat on public highways. I asked him what I could do to move the boat. His answer…”Not my problem.” This is a public servant serving my needs.

The truck driver gave me more options. He could get a permit for a wide load. He would have to also get two pilot cars, one fore and one aft. He may have to agree to a police escort. All this will have to be paid for. It was bad enough that I had to pay for a move I had not budgeted for. I could not have the extra expense of all the extras.

OK, another option is we just go. We leave Triangle Road about 3:00 in the morning and just take off down the road. We have a friend in a car go ahead and block off any side roads till the truck is there, then scoot ahead to the next one. This would prevent anyone from meeting the boat head on. Anyone following will just have to go slow and wait. There sure was no room to pass.

I asked what would happen if we get caught. He will have to pay a fine. How much? 25.00 less then the permit cost and a lot less then all the other costs. Didn’t make sense to me either, but OK, that’s what we did.

The move was uneventful. I was going to follow behind the truck pulling the boat, but the driver suggested I go ahead and make sure the new site was ready, etc. He felt that it would be too scary for me to watch him going down the highway at 30 to 40 miles per hour, just missing the poles and fence posts on both sides of the road.

So here we are. In B yard of Shelter Island Marina. This was the yard for longer-term projects. My spot was 40 feet long by 30 feet wide. It was two monohull spots, but they only charged me for one. Nice of them. I had water at a hose about 10 feet away and a 15-amp plug for my exclusive use. Exclusive if I could keep everyone else out of it. I was going to live aboard so I had to pay an extra 100.00/mth for the privilege. For this fee they provided mail service, shower facilities, washer, and dryer, GOOD toilet facilities, increased power usage, etc. Wow, I was paying over 300.00 a month. The marina had a pub, restaurant, cold beer and wine store, and chandler. All the comforts of home.