For day 2 of boat shopping we planned an easy day with only 3 boats on the list and all of them in Annapolis, just a short drive away from where we were staying. We slept in and relaxed until the morning traffic was over and then drove around the beltway to our first stop to look a Hunter 31 - yet this one is a more modern hunter and might be more boat than we need. The broker had her listed at $9500 with a line of “Bring all offers” so we thought we should take a look. Once below it quickly became apparent why they wanted offers. It was as if someone had taken a humidifier and shut it below and left it on for 4 or 5 years. Every other piece of plywood was delaminating, floorboards, bulkheads, cabinets, you name it. A quick look at the motor showed dripping diesel and a bilge with a lot of oil in it. This was a project boat, not a quick fix.



Oh well, next up was an Oday 30 shoal draft with a center board. I’ve never had a center board keel boat but they seem to be the rage on the East Coast, at least for the older set. This boat was tired and had been sitting on the hard for a long time. All the ropes needed to be replace (not too big a deal) but I feared the centerboard may be rusted in place. The interior was palatial and the diesel looked good, for an $8000 asking price she could work, but it seemed like a lot of boat for summer cruising.



2 down we went in search of the 3rd boat we wanted to look at but didn’t have any luck as the broker was out and we didn’t know where the boat was. Not too disappointed as it was a 25’er we already thought wouldn’t work, we moved on and started driving back to the other side of the capitol. For Mac’s sake, we stopped at a park along the way to plan our next day of boat shopping, make some calls and appointments and start thinking about boats between D.C. and Norfolk, the South end of the Chesapeake Bay. Organized and ready we drove on to dinner at Jennifer’s college friends, Scott & Sheryl Schettinger and their daughters Erin and Reagan.



They live in the most amazing development, a gated community that would make any residential developer envious. Street after street of huge houses with matching mailboxes and side streets heading off in every direction - A maze of streets that may prove difficult to escape later in the evening. We had a great time meeting their girls and Jennifer caught up with her old friends and reminisced about college times. Seems Scott and Jennifer knew each other from their Drexel engineering days having worked on a group project together. Night after night Scott would tell his wife, Sheryl, he was meeting Jennifer for the project, over beers, at school, you name it. Jennifer became the “other woman” to Sheryl and it wasn’t until Sheryl’d finally had enough that the two met, became friends and realized that Jennifer was also friends with Scott’s other buddy Nathan! A small world friendship circle that has held on over the years!



Dinner and visiting over, after staying much too late and keeping the Schettinger kids up way too late, we made it back to Brad’s to pack and get ready for our early morning drive South to Deltaville, Virginia and our first stop on a long day that will end at a hotel in Virginia Beach, Virginia for the night.