About a month ago, Stuart and I added something new to the collection of trailers/boats/toys in the backyard – the Party Barge.
We had been looking into maybe getting a new pontoon boat, but decided that was just too easy and not the way we like to do things at all – we like to buy cheap and completely re-do whatever it is, house or boat.
We bought this 20-foot used Sylvan from a friend because it was really just too good of a deal to pass up. It’s completely functional, and even with all the improvements we’re planning to make, we’ll still be at about half the price of a new boat. The first thing we had to add was the new Bimini top, and this weekend Stuart just upgraded to an 85-horse motor. **ETA: Stuart has just informed me that it is a 90-horse motor with an 85-horse cowling because that was prettier than the 90-horse one. Whatever that means.** That made taking the tube (seen hanging over the side in the above picture) out a lot more exciting! Or so I heard. I went once with the old motor (48-horse) in the ocean, which was more miserable than fun, with all the salt spraying in your face and up your nose. I haven’t gone on it in the lakes yet…amoebas, you know.
Next project is to remove the carpet and replace with fiberglass (that carpet is a bitch to clean), and when we get back from Germany we’ll replace the console, get new aluminum siding, and add more seating.
We’ve taken it out to the ocean twice already to go scalloping (more on that later), and have enjoyed tooling around the Chain of Lakes on weekends, continuing our Polk County bar reviews! Whenever anyone asks what I’m doing for the weekend, it’s nice to be able to say “Taking the boat out.” It’s also so nice to be able to have our choice of lakes to drop the boat into, all close to our house.
Even the dog has been enjoying it:
The only thing we need for it now is a name. We’ve been throwing a few boat name ideas around but nothing’s stuck so far. We may have to wait until it’s completely redone before we get the inspiration. But until then, any suggestions are welcome!
