the wind.
I drove around to the back of the blacktop, to the metal-roofed parking structure with its single cinder-block wall. That left the covered area exposed to the elements on three sides. The white, nondescript structure was located toward the back of the property, mostly out of view of the moored boats or the east-west traffic on the nearby road. Not an ideal garage, but it afforded a degree of shelter from the harsh marine environment. It was an important consideration for me the relative protection of the carport was one of the reasons I chose this particular marina. It was where I sheltered my black-on-black classic 1973 Porsche 911-S, painstakingly restored to factory specs, from Florida’s radioactive summer heat.
Pulling up to my assigned parking space, I carefully inched the Ducati forward, past the car, and parked it between the back wall and the Porsche’s rear bumper. I killed the engine and took my helmet off. The wind felt cool and heavy with moisture and brine, and the rain made a loud racket on the metal roof.
I ran toward the far docks, whose berths were often reserved for the bigger boats with deeper drafts. The entire scene before me dissolved into a dreary, fuzzy image of blurred, impressionistic shapes. In the blinding rain and fading light, I could barely make out the flying bridges, tuna towers, satellite arrays, or wavering stiletto outlines of the outriggers jutting skyward from the stately craft moored side by side in finger berths. If I weren’t so familiar with the location of berth B-11, I would have had a hard time finding my boat among the shadows.
After splashing trough several deep puddles, I left the hard surface of the parking lot and was now running fast on the slippery, weather-beaten planks of the dock. A minute later, I was sliding over the slick transom of Bold Ambition II . I crossed the generous teak-planked afterdeck and stood for a moment under the relative shelter of the main cabin awning. I took off my rain-soaked rubber boots and tucked them under the ladder way to the flying bridge and the long built-in ice chests that also doubled as aft-facing seats.
Owning a boat like this is a bit like having a bottomless black hole in the ocean to pour money into. My father had had the financial wherewithal to cover the considerable maintenance and operating costs without missing a beat. For me, on the other hand, buying this boat from the charitable trust meant I was now a slave to both the boat and the trust, which had provided the financing for the acquisition. Make no mistake, the trust administrator, Milton Gardner, an old family friend who also happened to be my godfather, had made some allowances so I could complete the transaction. He had agreed to a special “insider sale price” and had been extremely accommodating on the terms of the loan. To own this baby, I had mortgaged everything I could, and then sold the rest. My comparatively simple existence before this new transient lifestyle as a full-time marina squatter was now just a fading happy memory. The days of taking on a few select cases, interspersed with long idle periods when I just went fishing, were now history. And with the national economy in the dumps since the market meltdown of 2008, even the superrich were pulling back on some luxuries, divorce among them. My typical bread-and-butter cases, those relatively uncomplicated ones where the two parties settled more or less amicably and didn’t drag each other into a contentious and bloody court battle, were much harder to come by.
Until the economic collapse of 2008 I had done well enough in my practice to sustain a very comfortable lifestyle. The new economic reality dictated changes even in the most acrimonious marriage environments. People were either trying harder to work things out or holding off until the economy and, therefore, cash flows and net worth improved. Not only the frequency of divorces but also the net value of settlements went up or
I drove around to the back of the blacktop, to the metal-roofed parking structure with its single cinder-block wall. That left the covered area exposed to the elements on three sides. The white, nondescript structure was located toward the back of the property, mostly out of view of the moored boats or the east-west traffic on the nearby road. Not an ideal garage, but it afforded a degree of shelter from the harsh marine environment. It was an important consideration for me the relative protection of the carport was one of the reasons I chose this particular marina. It was where I sheltered my black-on-black classic 1973 Porsche 911-S, painstakingly restored to factory specs, from Florida’s radioactive summer heat.
Pulling up to my assigned parking space, I carefully inched the Ducati forward, past the car, and parked it between the back wall and the Porsche’s rear bumper. I killed the engine and took my helmet off. The wind felt cool and heavy with moisture and brine, and the rain made a loud racket on the metal roof.
I ran toward the far docks, whose berths were often reserved for the bigger boats with deeper drafts. The entire scene before me dissolved into a dreary, fuzzy image of blurred, impressionistic shapes. In the blinding rain and fading light, I could barely make out the flying bridges, tuna towers, satellite arrays, or wavering stiletto outlines of the outriggers jutting skyward from the stately craft moored side by side in finger berths. If I weren’t so familiar with the location of berth B-11, I would have had a hard time finding my boat among the shadows.
After splashing trough several deep puddles, I left the hard surface of the parking lot and was now running fast on the slippery, weather-beaten planks of the dock. A minute later, I was sliding over the slick transom of Bold Ambition II . I crossed the generous teak-planked afterdeck and stood for a moment under the relative shelter of the main cabin awning. I took off my rain-soaked rubber boots and tucked them under the ladder way to the flying bridge and the long built-in ice chests that also doubled as aft-facing seats.
Owning a boat like this is a bit like having a bottomless black hole in the ocean to pour money into. My father had had the financial wherewithal to cover the considerable maintenance and operating costs without missing a beat. For me, on the other hand, buying this boat from the charitable trust meant I was now a slave to both the boat and the trust, which had provided the financing for the acquisition. Make no mistake, the trust administrator, Milton Gardner, an old family friend who also happened to be my godfather, had made some allowances so I could complete the transaction. He had agreed to a special “insider sale price” and had been extremely accommodating on the terms of the loan. To own this baby, I had mortgaged everything I could, and then sold the rest. My comparatively simple existence before this new transient lifestyle as a full-time marina squatter was now just a fading happy memory. The days of taking on a few select cases, interspersed with long idle periods when I just went fishing, were now history. And with the national economy in the dumps since the market meltdown of 2008, even the superrich were pulling back on some luxuries, divorce among them. My typical bread-and-butter cases, those relatively uncomplicated ones where the two parties settled more or less amicably and didn’t drag each other into a contentious and bloody court battle, were much harder to come by.
Until the economic collapse of 2008 I had done well enough in my practice to sustain a very comfortable lifestyle. The new economic reality dictated changes even in the most acrimonious marriage environments. People were either trying harder to work things out or holding off until the economy and, therefore, cash flows and net worth improved. Not only the frequency of divorces but also the net value of settlements went up or
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