As most of you, who may have been following our adventures with this new lifestyle, know, a major hurdle for our future depended on becoming members of the Capital Yacht Club of the Washington, DC waterfront. Well hip, hip, hooray, effective yesterday, I received our official acceptance along with the new member packet for full Active Membership in the CYC! Now the Lady will have a temporary berth to be followed by a permanent berth once enough slip bids have been processed and our number comes up.
The process for acquiring a permanent slip is a competitive bid process based on your membership number. You must be constantly searching the slip vacancy postings and when one opens that your vessel will fit into, you fill out a bid interest slip. Once the period of open bidding has concluded, the senior bidder is awarded the slip. Until that wonderful day comes when our bid wins the day, we will be tied up to the “T” at the end of the docs. But the same services will be available there.
At least now, we have a home and one that is very convenient to Charlotte’s office, plus the added advantage of very close access to the DC subway system for both home and her office locations.
So, we begin the final steps to vacating our condo home and preparing for life on the water. In a few days, we will move the remaining furniture and boxes from the condo, loading them on a truck and hauling most of them to the West Virginia home of my son Cliff and his family. Once that is completed, we can do a final sweep through the unit to make certain all of our things are gone and the apartment is ready for the new owner.
Once we are technically homeless, we will relocate to the Annapolis, MD area and reside for a few days in a hotel while the Misty Lady undergoes her upgrades, refitting, and face lift. New flooring in the salon and master stateroom, new countertops, new appliances, safety inspections and certifications, bottom anti-fouling paint job, new holding tanks and upgraded electronics, including internet access while underway.
Once the work has been accomplished, the appliances installed and the new furniture delivered and in place, we will put her back in the water on the South River. We will then begin the journey down the Chesapeake Bay, and up the Potomac to the DC waterfront, our new home!
More later, we are getting down to the final steps of financial actions and the actual possession of the yacht. We will complete the Coast Guard required Documentation and then the name will be official.
Stay tuned folks.
Author: harv1941
Just a summary, I am 84 years of age, retired in July 2013 and settled down to promoting the dangers of bacterial meningitis, which killed my beloved son, Mike in 2009. My wife, Charlotte, and I embarked on an adventure of live aboard cruising, aboard a large Blue Water motor yacht. While our beginning was rather fraught with hurdles, we continued to look forward to the day we moved aboard the Misty Lady and cruise the eastern seaboard and associated waterways. After more than four years of life aboard this Bluewater Motor Yacht, I developed an advanced problem due to interaction with medications and experienced rather frightening balance problems. Therefore, getting on and off the yacht was fraught with danger of falling between the docks and the boat's hull. Walking the docks was also problematic considering that our yacht club docks were all floating docks and my balance problem was a danger during the walk from our yacht's docking slip to the clubhouse or out to the DC Wharf facilities and our car housed in the yacht club's reserved garage. SO, we had to regretfully put the Misty Lady up for sale and move back on shore. We moved on shore, first into a condo apartment in Alexandria, then after two years there, we relocated to the city of Newport News, in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Our original desired location was in the city of Hampton, Virginia, which is the oldest English-speaking settlement in the United States having been established originally in 1610. My ancestors came to this country through this settlement in the mid 1600s and lived in that area for around 100 years before beginning a migration of one portion of our family toward the west.
I looked forward to moving back to this area and exploring the roots of my family, both maternal and paternal ancestry, but we found a great house in the Newport News area and became ensconced in the terrific neighborhood of Kiln Creek. My wife, being still actively employed, received a substantial offer in a position with a government contractor firm back up in Northern Virginia. So we put the Newport News house up for sale, receiving and accepting an offer withing two days. We then relocated back up to the city of Alexandria and into another high rise condo. My wife reached a point where considerations for retirement were becoming very important. She indicated that she really didn't want to retire in Alexandria, so once again we began a house search in the Tidewater area, this time in the City of Williamsburg and in a community restricted to 55+ age owners. We found the ideal location, initiated the sale and closing for our retirement home. We then put our condo on the market. Alas, the market was not as robust as before so we had to change asking price a couple of time, but finally the Alexandria Condo was sold. Now we are set to enjoy the great locations found here in the Tidewater/Hampton Roads area, considering that we are history buffs and there are literally hundreds of historical sites in this segment of our nation. Of course living in Williamsburg is the epitome of history living life.
So, now we are in our retirement home, in a great retirement type community. A great clubhouse with a fine dining restaurant, a grill/pub, an award winning PGA designed golf course and miles of walking trails. Looking forward to my wife's eventual full retirement and the two of us visiting all up and down the east coast historical spots.
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Misty Lady Thought and Comment 