Florida bound

[Alex F]

Great pix, Tim. The shirts for the crew was a cute touch.

[searay40dad]

Yeah, the family has been great. T-shirts, electronics, gas money and my wife even got a kick out of the Little Black Dress night story. Other than the visa bill, its been a fun ride so far.

[Carver370]

You're living the dream my man, even have my favorite Sea Ray! Looks like an amazing trip.

Very small world. I sold that 460... It's a 2000 and belonged to a friend of mine before it was sold to Victor. Was it his Captain running the boat? I noticed the Sat dome and the white enclosure, definitely "Guaranteed Fun"

Here she was when she was named Shellaylee And actually that's the boat I'm rafted up to in my signature picture!

[searay40dad]

Yep, that's it. "Guaranteed Fun". The guy knew his stuff but I think we pushed his 450 cummins motors pretty hard. I'm not sure that boat can cruise all day long at 25 knots or better as comfortably as we could. He didn't want to ante up on the last leg with us. Nevertheless, he took a lot of crap ahead of us and had first watch on John boats, dive boats, bass boats, pontoon boats and all those other annoyances that required us to back down. He didn't miss much and was a very considerate and competent captain. His nephew handled the locks--lines and fenders. I offered to swap my crew for the nephew but he wouldn't bite ;)

[rcon]

Stunning.

You certainly boat in some amazing country.

Thanks for sharing.

[searay40dad]

Just curious, what kind of labor rates are you FL guys seeing at your boatyards?

[susanandlance]

99.00 hr. here, but I do my own work.

[fwebster]

Retail at TIM is $125.........established customers with a boat in the marina pay $99. To get "established", complain about the retail rate and give them a credit card # to put on file. The marina only carries open accounts secured by a credit card. Most of us don't worry with the bill when it comes and just let the marina put the charge thru on the credit card.

Winter is slow, really slow this year, so if you can get a decent and finite description of the work you want done, (for example, 'clean and reseal all cabin windows' instead of 'fix leak in cabin') Roland will sometimes just quote a fee for the entire job if you let then do it while work is slow.

Hope to catch you guys this trip down, but we probably won't get in town before 12/31.

[searay40dad]

Thanks Frank (and Lance for the reply). Roland (and Vic) have quoted a few things for me and I've turned them on for 4-5 items (underwater zincs & mains; window frame repair; NEMA data cabling; bottom scrape; etc) at their convenience. They did quote $99/hour rate which just kinda surprised me. My home port's yard is very well known in the midwest, full service and does a huge Great lake snowbird & looper business and their rate is $80/hour and most in our area consider them expensive. So I'm just feeling out the waters. TIM hasn't shown any hesitation in adding things my credit card :)

We'll probably just miss you. We plan to head down day after christmas (just in time to catch the coldfront and mid-50 weather) and head back new years eve day. Beats Indiana and the mid-20 bluster I guess. I think we'll fly down for 4 days over MLK holiday in January.

curious, do you take 231 from montgomery or 87/167/331/etc? we've done both but did 331 route at 3am w/ no traffic.

[fwebster]

No......we travel with our dogs so where we stop for food, fuel and pit stops, and what we can combine has an influence on the total elapsed time. We have found that the following is the best route to the beach from Montgomery:

As you approach Montgomery on the north side of town, take I-85 east toward Atlanta, go 9 miles to the Taylor Road exit (#9), exit to the right. Follow Old Taylor Road until it dead ends into hiway 231; turn left and stay on 231 to Troy,AL. At Troy, turn right (at Country's Barbecue) onto AL hiway 167, Stay on 167, at Enterprise, take the by pass by following 167, but you will turn left as soon as you get to the stoplight in Enterprise. Follow 167 all the way to Esto, FL where AL 167 changes to FL-79. Stay on 79 all the way to PCB. It dead ends at Back Beach Road (at the "Y"), turn left on Back Beach and go to the marina.

This route is all 4 lane or very good 2 lane, minimum turns, and it is safe at any time of the day or nite. You are never far from a town in case you have a problem.


And between us, Vic is a service writer; try to work thru Roland and build a relationship with him.