So I've had this idea, for like 10 years, to rig up a little boat for nature photography from the water.
I asked to borrow or buy a little boat from a friend of nearly 25 years. He said I could keep the boat, treat it like my own, etc. I'll give the abbreviated version... I tried several means of motor repair, replacement motor, nothing trustworthy resulted and as a result of that bad luck, I sort of left it alone.. for several years.
Fast Forward to 2013, entering the life changing 800mm f 5.6 lens that I scored on EBay. It re-kindled the gun (lens) boat idea.
I call that old friend and say that I'm thinking about fixing up the boat, maybe getting a much newer and way more reliable motor (outboard), but if he's going to say he wants his boat back, I'll just start shopping for a complete boat, motor and trailer.
How did he respond.. he actually came down to Houston from the Fort Worth area during his kids spring break and transferred titles to me for the boat, motor and trailer.
Parts for the motor he gave me are pretty much obsolete.
Enter the motor miracle.
I had been watching, only planning to pull the purchasing trigger on a really sweet deal. Several pretty suspicious Craigslist deals kept popping up, but I couldn't get any response at all for them and all but 1 good deal from EBay were local pickup only deals and each of them involved a 3-4 days of driving adventure.
Enter the almost too good to be true deal. After watching Craigslist from Corpus to New Orleans, Galveston to Dallas/Ft. Worth.. the exact motor that I was looking for popped up 2 neighborhoods away. The price wasn't close to right, but there was something about this motor, and being so close to home, I thought I'd make a run on it.
I email the seller tell them that their price looks a bit high, that I wasn't trying to offend them, but if they needed the money and have the proper paperwork, I was ready to make a deal. The response made it obvious that the person selling didn't go out and buy the motor new, or didn't even buy the motor at all. He said he checked on the pricing for that motor and would only go down 12%. I said that I could respect that, but there was a real smoking great deal down out of Corpus that I was waiting to hear back from.
I got busy, almost forgot to check.. but about a week later, I check and he had changed the price to the lower amount he told me. I thought of making another offer, but decided to check back in a week. When I checked back.. he had lowered it now 29% lower than the original listing. I made an offer for 47% less than the original asking price. He told me he'd sell it for 37% less than original asking price and I agreed.
Enter the fun part.. I met him at his house, it started right up, but there were a few minor issues. When I look at the title, it's not the guy selling it. He tells me that he inherited it when his uncle passed away. The uncle had lots of boat motors and parts, and hulls, etc. and he and his dad were in the process of selling of what they could when they could that I should be fine since the title was signed. In Texas a signed title is only half of it. There's a PWD 144 form that has to also be filled out by the titled owner. I find out that the only way to title it without the form would be a bonded title process that takes several months and a few extra hundred dollars.
Quite discouraged, I take to Google searching for the title holder. A phone # comes up to the address, in Livingston, TX, for a pet grooming service. What have I got to lose? I call and explain my wild goose story.. and the man says, yeah, that's my nephew, try this phone number. OK, I think.. I call it and leave a voice mail, again explaining the wild goose story. The guy called me right back saying YEAH! "You got my old motor eh...? Wanna sell it back to me! I loved that motor and I would love to have it back!" I'm like.. no, I don't want to sell it.. I want to get some use out of it.. but is there any way we could meet up somewhere, I'll buy lunch.. and get you to fill out and sign that 2nd paper needed. He was like "Sure! I just went through the mess of not having the right paperwork!" We agree on a place and rough time.. then my phone rings again..
The guy I bought it from was calling to tell me that his dad told him they did have the PWD 144 form signed by the title holder, he now had it and would be happy to meet up with me to give it to me. Turns out, he and I were only 10 minutes apart. We met 15 minutes later, neither of us going out of our way and voila! I had the paperwork.
I get out of a meeting with time to make it to the PWD office, but not really early enough to make sense to head back to the office, to head home a short while after. I opted for the PWD office, and VOILA! It all went right through without questions or issue and KAPOW! The title is in the mail..
I'm thinking for all of this to work out this way this fast.. I'm kinda meant to have this motor and will soon have lots of incredible pictures to share that were captured from this boat.
That is all for now.
TK
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