Welcome to Tropical Horizons II.
Over the past 6 years we have enjoyed the short boating season that Canada offers aboard the decks of Tropical Horizons, our 1987 Sea Ray 410 AC. She has served us well and we've put lots of effort in upgrading her from adding bow and stern thrusters, to a solar system, we've spent a lot of time and effort getting her ready for extending cruising. However things change and so did our cruising and retirement plans. When we first purchased Tropical Horizons, she was to be our entry boat into the cruising world. Karen and I both had experience cruising aboard smaller sailboats and Tropical Horizons was our first "big boat". We learned a great deal about marina life and about cruising life, while we explored the waters of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, the Bay of Quinte and the Trent Severn Waterway. We forged many new friendships along the way and learned about this thing called the "Great Loop". We joined and currently volunteer many hours with the AGLCA, which is a cruising club for those who embark on the "Great Loop", those who are still in the planning stages as well as those who have completed the "Loop".
So what has changed? Well as you can see from the new appearance of our blog page, the boat has changed. Karen and I made the decision that we would be selling everything we own on land and moving aboard permanently. We had come to this decision about a year or two ago and at first we thought about renting a storage unit to place all of our "stuff" while we explored the world surrounded by water. We then realized that this would be impractical, and costly only to hang onto things that we would never see. So the decision to downsize and start to rid ourselves of the "stuff" that we had accumulated over the years was taken. Going through the exercise of downsizing still is leaving us with lots of "stuff" that we wanted to keep without enough space on the boat to keep these things. Some of you who have been to our house, know that Karen and I are collectors of art. We love paintings, photographs (that both of us have taken), sculpture (mostly wood carvings) and other bits that we have collected throughout our travels or have inherited from family who have since passed. Some items will be moving to the vacation rental homes that we own in Florida, and others will be passed on to family, while even more items will stay with us. So we need some space to display these items. We also enjoy entertaining guests aboard Tropical Horizons, as many of you who have attended our docktails will recall. We have accommodated up to 12 people on the aft deck and flybridge of Tropical Horizons, but that was a little crowded. We also want to be able to have family and friends visit us and travel with us as we share our experiences, unfortunately Tropical Horizons would only accommodate two additional guests.
After a few years of cruising for extended trips with Tropical Horizons we knew that life aboard her would be possible, but there would be limitations. We told ourselves that really the boat was for the two of us and that our little 41 foot Sea Ray would be just fine. We loved Tropical Horizons and she kept us safe and comfortable throughout all of our trips. She was paid for, and I knew her well. I knew all of her quirks, I knew how she moved through the water, how the wind affected her, best of all I could maintain her myself. In short we still love Tropical Horizons and will be sad to see her go.
Fast forward to late summer of 2019. Karen and I will often spend time looking at other boats on a rainy day or in the morning over breakfast, it's what we do. Throughout the years we have often spent time looking at Burgers, Browards, Linsens, Hatterass, Vikings and Chris Crafts to name a few. For some reason, we always seem to gravitate to the Burgers, why, I think it's the lines of the older classics that appeal to us. With that said, we came across a beautiful 1958 60 ft. Burger. We read the specs and studied the photos closely. We searched the internet for any additional information we could find on this specific boat and yes we did manage to find a few things but mostly old listings and the associated specs. So encouraged by new friends and fellow loopers, I reached out to the listing broker and in November of 2019 she joined our family.
