Nirvana's Water Taxi .. or Dinghy!

A while ago .. over 7 years to be exact (wince!) Ken and I purchased a new inflatable dinghy and Tohatsu outboard motor. We were excited about "our new car" .. little did we know how long it would be in storage .. and that we'd have bought something different if we knew then what we know now! Inflatables seem to be a pain, and the fact that ours isn't Hypalon doesn't help but .. it's what we have for now, and more importantly .. it works!

For most of the 7+ years that our dinghy was in storage, it was in our closet. The dinghy was only in a hot storage unit for just over a year, and we hoped that the seams would not fail when we finally inflated our lil Zodiac again.

We had forgotten how to inflate the dinghy, but it was pretty easy and luckily .. it held air!

After lowering the dinghy into the water, we used our new engine hoist to lower "Mr. T" onto the dinghy. When we ran our dinghy that one time seven years ago, lowering the engine was tough and we were lucky it didn't sink to the bottom of the canal! I don't think we wasted one cent purchasing the engine hoist .. it made the process so much easier!

After giving our Tohatsu some TLC from sitting 7+ years, we still needed to break in "Mr. T". So, we motored around the canals for a couple of hours. It's such a great feeling to finally be back on the water on our own boat after all these years .. even if it's on our little inflatable! These are the same canals we rode the dinghy through all those years ago when we were still living in our house. We feel like we're making progress after all these years.

We've taken our dinghy for a spin a few times since this day, and our Tohatsu is finally broken in for the next ride.

Here's a view of Nirvana that we hadn't seen in a long time ... from our dinghy!

We're feeling good about finally having our dinghy and motor back on Nirvana, but we're already considering options for a more durable dinghy. I'm really interested in the Port-A-Bote, as it folds up and can be stored on Nirvana's stanchions .. leaving our view unobstructed and the deck free from obstacles. We'd really like to ride in one since we've heard they're a little "different". Anybody from Texas to Florida wanna give us a ride on theirs? We'd love to hear from anybody that has one .. even if we can't take it for a ride.

Hasta luego .. until then. Mid-Life Cruising!