Buying a Boat Part 1

We love to travel and road trip. Each place we go we would love to get on the lake, ocean or local wet spot! So we were discussing what we should do? Go camping and buy a canoe? Buy a ski boat and camp? We aren't able to afford the catamaran we want yet and sail. Nor do we have anywhere to keep it.... we live in Texas y'all. There isn't a way to sail to the Caribbean here.... so we wanted something that we can take with us on our road trips. Jolene made a random comment about just dropping anchor and camping in the boat......
Hm.... we never even considered buying a smaller cruiser. Once we started looking at what was available we quickly knew this was a great option for our stage of life, and budget. We searched all over.
We went late at night to see two boats, even keeping the kids up super late to go look at a boat. (We are known for getting our kids in bed real early, so this was a shock to most people we know) Even going to eat dinner at 10 pm after seeing a boat.
The boys are loving the time together and shopping for a boat. They like getting to see everything.
The first boat we looked at was a 23 foot Excel, it was local. The owner had taken such great care of it, but after thinking about what we wanted to do with the boat and how long we want to stay on it, we just needed more space
The next boat we looked at was a 28 foot Maxum, in Dallas. It was ll newly reupholstered and great space and storage. We did test drive this boat in part 2 (coming soon)
Our budget was a large part of this whole conversation too. We were looking for a boat with a trailer, so we can tow it around with us. But most of the boats we liked didn't have one. But we thought maybe we could negotiate something and we kept looking at boats without trailers even those that were above our budget. Which is what brought us to our favorite boat the Regal Commodore 292. It's a 30 foot dual engine boat, which we like the idea of two engines so we could travel from Florida and into the Bahamas and into the Caribbean with the sense of security that two engines brings. So we looked all over the country. We found 3 Regal Commodore's. One in Texas, Florida and New York. The one in Florida was in rough shape due to Hurricane Irma. The one in New York is in the best shape, but it was the most expensive and the farthest away. We contemplated over and over flying to New York just to look and finding a way to stretch the budget..... long story short. We had to eventually pass on the boat in New York, although probably still our favorite! The third commodore 292 was in Conroe Texas, just outside of Houston. The pictures appeared to be a beautiful boat.
When we got there, it was not quite what we were hoping for. The mold, the smell, the water in the carpet was just overwhelming. On top of it ll the engines did start, but one jjust wouldn't stay running. There was no oil pressure. We weren't sure if the gauges just didn't work or there really was no oil, by the way it didn't drive or turn we assumed the engine dry and needing a lot more work than it was worth.  So we drove away from Houston with no boat and an idea of which boat we would go after. Hang tight for Part 2.....