Under the Boardwalk, Down By the Sea

JusCrewZen has been at her new home in Kemah Boardwalk Marina for a week now.  She likes it here and so do I.  Of course she'd rather be "out there", but we are still in the preparing stages.  So as far as marinas go, this one is pretty cool.  As my friend Attila on a sailboat named Bettie used to say "Yeah, we live in an amusement park".

The first marina we called home was Waterford Harbor Marina where the website boasts "Waterford Harbor Marina offers you all the charm and elegance of a Williamsburg-style". And I won't lie.... I loved it there.  The marina itself is absolutely beautiful and it's like coming home to vacation at a resort every day.  Spoiled???  Heck yeah!  One day I even said "It's like being on permanent vacation....with neighbors".

A word of advice to the men out there trying to get their women aboard: Make it as nice, easy, and pleasant as possible for the first 6 months to a year.  Pick the pretty marina, the one with a lot of extras.  Let her get used to going from a large home or apartment to living on a boat in the most inviting environment possible. 

I almost refuse to speak about it, but for 2 wks we lived in marina hell.  The place I drive by and flip off.  The place I STILL have nightmares about.  Notice I will NOT call this marina our first home.  The previous owner hadn't paid slip rent in almost a year, so 2 wks was spent working thru that mess.  And I won't lie.....as a brand new live aboard, I cried more than once during those 2 weeks b/c I hated living on the boat.  We had to park our cars on gravel, dock carts did not exist, no trees, no shade, and this marina is where everyone comes to have their boats hauled out and put on the hard to be worked on.  The constant noise of sanding and sawing and hammering and nailing was enough to drive a woman insane.  So not only was I trying to acclimate to living in smaller quarters, but I was doing it smack dab in the middle of hell. 

When we moved to Waterford by attitude changed w/in the first 24 hours.  I spent every day at the pool on the weekends and M-F we went for an evening swim at least 3 times a week.  Sittin out on the aft deck and grilling in the evenings w/ a drink in hand was pleasurable.  I fell in love w/ the lifestyle almost immediately.  Moving me into that marina was the smartest thing we ever did. 

But it was a time for a change of pace, so we motored over to the Boardwalk.

It's lively over here, and I'm loving it.  We're walking distance from so many restaurants and little shops.  I'm absolutely dying to go to The Haunted Heel.  It's a shoe store, and even if I can't buy any heels I can still look! 

From the deck we can hear the live music in the evenings.  I can't think of a better way to explain this marina than "just plain fun".