Author:  Miranda

Location:  Fort Lauderdale, Florida
[26°8′N 80°9′W]

After a quick hotel breakfast (man, having real coffee everywhere is fabulous!  I love you Chile, but I will never, ever miss Nescafe), we headed out to meet up with Steve again from the Catamaran company.  Steve had three boats to show us, and he never disappoints in finding us a group of boats in which one as different from the next as possible in the world of catamarans.  It’s so nice to compare many different styles of boats.

We started at a 4o foot Norseman.  Oh baby, this boat was ginormous!  I started daydreaming about all the storage and all the things we could fit in this cavernous honker, and I had to mentally slap myself in the face.  No!  Living simple and light… that’s the plan!  So, while being a very cool boat, this lady was just too large for us.

Our second boat was the dark horse of the group.  We had no expectations or previous experience with Fortunas, and this little Island Spirit had a long list of positives.  We especially loved the spacious and open cockpit, as well as a comparatively wide beam for it’s length.  Being 35′ long and 22′ wide, this chunker is almost a square.  While maybe not “the boat,” this was our favorite of the day.  The only point that made us skittish about the boat was the unconventional aspect of having hybrid engines instead of diesels.  This boat is basically a Prius made for water.  Not sure how we’d fix these in remote places, but we would like to research this a little further before we check this as a positive or negative.

Steve’s last boat was a Jeantot Marine Privilege 39.  She was a little older than we were looking for, when it was customary to have galley down.  We really are looking for a galley up model, though I did like the foredeck layout of the boat.  Felt like a solid craft though.

Bloody hot.  Got in the car after our time with Steve to 101°F and almost sizzled on the leather seats of the car.  For all the griping we hear about the heat and humidity though, it doesn’t hold a candle to the Cartagena oppression.  We felt like spring chickens even in the sun here comparatively!

Our last adventure of the day was a quick drive up  to Fort Pierce to see an Fountaine Pajot Athena 38.  She was on the hard, with an interesting superstructure davit built off the back of the boat.  Though the salon is a bit more snug than others, I really like the layout of the boat.  Good size, fairly well equipped, but a touch older than we’d like.

Drove back to Fort Lauderdale.  Feels like we’ve been living in the car.  But it has A/C in south Florida summer, so that’s just fine!  Stopped at Whole Foods.  Holy crap!  Where has that been all my life!  It’s like we’ve been living on a different continent for seven years.  Seven years…. shit.

The search continues tomorrow.