Bon Voyage!

The boat is sold.

The deal closed on Thursday, and just like that, six of the happiest years of my life came to an end.

It feels strange to write that. Somewhere Hot was technically a boat, but that description seems woefully inadequate. She was a floating RV with a beer cooler and a really big air mattress. She was a hotel, restaurant, dive platform, dance floor, confessional, playground, and occasionally a very expensive mechanical problem.

Mostly, she was a place where people I love gathered.

I checked the calendar and discovered that I spent 29 weeks aboard Somewhere Hot, including two month-long adventures through the eastern Caribbean. Twenty-nine weeks. Dozens of sunsets. Countless bottles of wine. And an alarming quantity of rum.

The motto was “Different Day. Different Bay.”

And we lived by it.

We explored. We hiked. We dove. We swam. We played games. We ate too much and drank perhaps exactly the right amount. We told stories we had all heard before and laughed at them anyway. We lay in the sun. We stayed up too late.

And the music never stopped playing.

Of course, owning a boat is also an excellent way to discover entirely new categories of things that can break.

There were engine problems. The old generator had the temperament of a French waiter. The ice maker and electric grill occasionally responded to a strategically placed kick. And despite six years of determined effort, I never completely figured out the windlass and the bridle.

There is an old saying that a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money. I have deliberately avoided calculating the economics of owning Somewhere Hot. Some questions are better left unanswered.

But I do know what appeared on the other side of the cost ledger: precious time.

Time with friends. Time with family. Time exploring places I had never seen. Long dinners. Ridiculous conversations. Quiet mornings. Beautiful sunsets. Inside jokes. New friendships and old friendships made stronger.

You can charter someone else’s yacht, but there is something deeply satisfying about standing at the helm of your own boat, looking around at a group of people you care about and thinking: We can go wherever we want.

So what comes next?

I’m not entirely sure.

The reality of selling Somewhere Hot hasn’t completely sunk in yet.

Although I should confess that I already have my eye on a 67-footer.

Or possibly a 70.

Or maybe a 75 or an 80.

Apparently, the principal lesson I learned from six years of boat ownership is that I need a bigger boat.

More cabins mean more friends. More friends mean more adventures. And adventures with people you love are about as close as I have come to understanding what the good life is all about.

Ecclesiastes says, “To everything there is a season.” It also says that we should eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of our labor.

I increasingly think that may be the whole point.

So, bon voyage, Somewhere Hot.

Thank you for the adventures, the laughter, the friendships, the sunsets, the stories, and even the challenges.

You gave us one hell of a ride.

And I have a feeling we aren’t done yet.