Priorities

Al and I love to water ski. Years ago when we talked about retirement, we both agreed that water skiing had to be part of it.

You have to set priorities if you want to spend your retirement water skiing. You need a good ski boat and ski gear. And the boat needs to be ready to head out and ski with no hassle--every day. We're not the type that works on boats or builds stuff. Maintenance and improvements for our boat, dock, and boathouse are important parts of our budget. This year we decided to upgrade the boat house and dock (again).

Our soil here is sand. Sand shifts easily with waves. We have a seawall all along the canal, but boat wakes are always an issue. We are in a drought. Lake levels are low. Boat wakes have more impact on the sea wall and the sand near the sea wall than usual. In wintertime the boaters are primarily old guys in small fishing boats. Old guys don't speed in the canals. Summer brings lots of young jetski riders and showboating adults who forget the "no wake" rules. Complaining about them is pointless. (People in glass houses and all that. We did our share of dumb stuff when we were younger.) The best fix is a low secondary seawall under our dock to prevent the wakes from breaking on our primary seawall. That both protects our primary seawall and gives us a place to dump the sand dug out from under the boatlift to give us more depth. So that was this month's project.

The guys from the marine contractor built the mini seawall this week. We also had them fix some issues with the jetski lift's cables. This weekend they guys will be back to dig the area under the boats to give the boat cradles plenty of room for launching the boats. (The cradle of the ski boat needs several feet more depth than the boat so the boat can float in and out of the cradle.)

The cost of all this? About what we'd spend for a short vacation at a beach resort. The value of being able to get our boats out without a hassle during the summmer? Priceless.