Yesterday I drove into Seattle to pick up a few doo-dads at the Zodiac dealership (the only one in the entire state of Washington). We have an eleven foot Fastroller with 10 hp Yamaha motor. We needed an adaptor for the compressor (to make inflating it easier), and some glue, and some other whatnots that can only be gotten there.
Before I left the house, P and I went online to check out their website. Specifically, we wanted to see what they had in the way of little trailers, so we could leave the boat inflated during the season, and simply pull it out of the garage when we wanted to use it, without having to go through the whole process of loading it (and the motor) into the back of the car, throwing in all the paraphernalia - and hoping we didn't forget anything - and then putting it all together at our water destination, only to have to disassemble everything when we are done.
So when I got to the store, I had some questions about a trailer we saw on their website. Needed more info. I was on a fact-finding mission only. Or so I thought.
Long story short, I came home about 2 hours later. Had my doo-dads. And a trailer behind me.
Impulse buy? Not really. We have talked about getting a trailer ever since we bought the boat, five years ago. Before B was born, it wasn't a big deal for just P and me to pack it all up and put it together. We could do it in 20 minutes. But when B came along, everything changed. We didn't use the boat as much, partly because of the time constraints of simply being new parents, but also because of the hassle factor. It took us upward to an hour to get the thing water-bound when we had to keep chasing after B, getting distracted by something she was doing, and basically just trying to keep her entertained and safe while we were doing it. Not much fun.
But now. NOW we can go and launch it on a moment's notice! It's inflated, it's ready to go, and it's perched atop our new trailer, which is so petite it fits in our tiny garage, with room to spare. We've got our gear assembled, everything is ready to go. We're taking her out today.
Got new lifejackets for everybody yesterday too. Sometimes you just need a new lifejacket. Gives you a new lease on life (so to speak). Kind of like when you get new underwear. Also got a couple of new seat cushions, and tomorrow I am going to stop and buy a locking storage container that fits right on to the tongue of the trailer -- to keep our gear in.
She's a grand little boat. We've taken her a lot of places. The most memorable might be Yellowstone Lake, where the motor hardly worked due to the elevation (until we consulted our owner's manual and did some adjustments to something I can't remember. Then it worked great.) We've packed up our camping gear in it, and have camped in spots only accessible by small boat. We've launched it from spots no one with a full-size regular boat could ever access. It's been great for ferrying firewood and water from one side of a lake to the other. It's strong enough to pull a child or really small adult behind on an innertube (but not a really big adult).
We've talked about selling it and getting a "real" boat. But we always come back to the storage factor, and the versatility factor. So we hold on to it, and we really USE it. And we plan to use it for a long time to come. Even if we do get a regular boat some day, I think we'll always have our Zodiac. If, for no other reason, than to give the kids something to zip around in on the lake while we're lounging on the deck of our Bayliner.
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