Adventures of the Sailing Vessel Hakuna Matata: June 2010

Greetings from Kemah, Texas...a quaint coastal community on Clear Lake, off Galveston Bay, about 20 miles south of Houston and 5 miles from the sun. It is H. O. T. but otherwise completely fabulous. I arrived on Wednesday, June 2 and Craig has Hakuna Matata snugly situated in Watergate Marina. The marina has tight cleanliness and mooring restrictions, so all the boats have clean decks and secure lines. With hurricane season upon us, this provides security to all boats in the slips. We are in a 55 foot slip, so it is wide enough and long enough to protect us from other boats. The docks are floating rather than fixed, which means that it would take a 15 foot surge to float us out of the slip.

First order of business, get rid of my rental car and buy us one set of wheels. We think we can get by readily enough with only one car for the time being. On Thursday, we drove up to the CarMax in north Houston. An excellent experience, and at the end of the day, we own a 2007 Nissan Xterra with 15K miles. I'll tell you what, future cruisers. It may be easy enough to fall off the grid, but it is a trick to get back on it. We had some 'splaining to do, what with Texas drivers licenses attached to Texas addresses but a mailing address in Florida. Got through all that. But the insurance? gawd. As if we didn't get hosed enough by the medical insurance denial, the car insurance was/is a nightmare. Frankly, I think insurance people should be strung up with the democrats, but I digress. So here's the deal, and a lesson for you. When we sold our cars, we dropped our auto policies. Two separate companies, neither of which told us of the consequences. What we found out this week is this: if you have an active TX driver's license and don't have insurance, even if you no longer own a car, they figure you have access to and will drive someone else's car, putting you in absolutely THE highest risk category. Huh? Plus, we could have gotten this special "don't own a car" supercheap insurance to avoid this issue. So here we are, excellent credit and driving records, paying more for a 6 month policy for one car than we ever paid individually for two cars. Whatever. Deep breath. Move on. It will pass in 6 months....

Craig is not sure of his swimsuit modeling career, so is practicing for car modeling as well. What do you think?

On Friday, we met with our realtor and went to see 9 houses. It was a busy day. The ones we have be loving on-line for the last 6 months got ruled-out pretty quick. Easy enough to understand...if they have been on the market that long, even in this market, there is an issue. It was a fun day and in the end, we found one we absolutely adore. I don't want to tell you about it lest I jinx it, so more later once we pull the trigger.

In the interim, it has been a great week/weekend. Skip came over and we had beef tenderloin and a swim. Beef that is delicious and does not require a bank loan for three servings. God bless Texas!! Another night we went for sushi like we have not had in a while...

Here are some shots of the marina:

A view from Texas 146, entering Kemah. Craig took me to the seafood markets where the commercial boats unload their daily catch. Right out of the water and no oil.