New to Forum - Stone Pony

[StonePony]

I've been lurking for a couple weeks and thought I should formally say hello. I'm in the Ft. Myers / Cape Coral area and have been researching the 28TE pretty heavily. That's how I stumbled across the AOG. This is a great forum, no, community, with lots of useful information.

Currently I have a 23' OB walkaround, and the admiral and I would like to be able to overnight and weekend at Cayo Costa, Gaspirillia, and make the occasional run down to the Keys. The 23' just doesn't have the amenities, or range we're looking for. My biggest concern for the 28 is the 3'2" draft. There is alot of skinny water around here, and we like to hang out on the sand bars off Sanibel and Ft Myers Beach, but being vertically challenged, I like to tuck the boat tight into the shallows.

BTW - Rick Murry's account of the Roland Martin "Resort" in Clewiston was hysterical. We made the trip up there with 5 boats last April and had a blast. It happened to be the weekend of the Clewiston Swamp Cabbage Festival. What can I say, timing is everything.

[Veebyes2]

Welcome to the group. My first boat was a 21' OB cuddy cabin. It served us well till the first minnow came along. We were weekenders every weekend. Giving up our overnights was not an option. Our first Albin was a 27AC, 2'6" draft. That was hardly more than the OB only the Albin did not have a button labeled TRIM. We liked skinny water too. Many a time our Albin could be found hard aground close to a beach as the tide passed through low headed to high again.

Bottom paint stayed on the lowest point of the keel for maybe the first 2 weeks of the season.

No different habits with the 32. Always deliberately grounding it on a falling tide just before low water. It is the outboarder that still lives inside of me.

[jcollins]

Stonepony,
The first two seasons my boat spent it's time on a very shallow creek. Normal high tide was 3 1/2 - 4 feet. Low tide? Sometimes I just couldn't get out or back in. It was all muck w/ shells. At 2.9 your keel is pushing through the muck. Those shells hitting the prop is a bit unnerving. I don't recommend it.
I wanted the convertible and just could not find the I/O version. Glad I couldn't. Now that I'm at a marina, with decent depth, I couldn't be happier with this boat. We too like to tie up to the local sandbar and hang out. You won't be able to "beach it" like your outboard so just drop anchor and walk in.

Welcome to AOG.

BTW...cabbage festival? You sit around eat cabbage and drink beer? Tell me about it.
Well...I just had to look it up. It looks like a fun day. http://swampcabbagefestival.org

[cdahmen]

Stone Pony Welcome to Albin Land. I live in Punta Gorda at Burnt Store Marina and have a 28 2004 Gatsby model for sale.If interested give me a call. 941-661-1559.If you just want to take a look and get some ideas of what you may want in your next boat thats okay. Carl cdahmen16@comcast.net

[StonePony]

Hey thanks Carl, I'd like to take you up on the idea part at least. I guess I didn't mention in my original post that I was a year or two out on the purchase. Right now we are selling our home and trying to move to Gulf access. Waretown hey? We are from Belmar and Monmouth Beach.

I'll send you a PM

[RicM]

BTW - Rick Murry's account of the Roland Martin "Resort" in Clewiston was hysterical. We made the trip up there with 5 boats last April and had a blast. It happened to be the weekend of the Clewiston Swamp Cabbage Festival. What can I say, timing is everything.

From Good Fellas....
"But I'm funny how? Funny
like a clown? I amuse you?"


THE FAMOUS ROLAND MARTIN RESORT was quite a place. Tell us about your experience at the swamp cabbage festival.....do they really eat the stuff? That would certainly explain the odor in the Men's Room next to the Tiki Bar. How about the Martin Girls? There were like a half dozen of the roughest looking bleached blond women in skin tight jeans, FRMR T-shirts, and the most luscious muffin tops in between I'd ever seen that were working there. They all appeared to share an ancestor.

[Capt Ron]

Knew you had to be Jersey with the name "Stone Pony". Last one out turns the light off.

[StonePony]

Knew you had to be Jersey with the name "Stone Pony". Last one out turns the light off.

The New Jersey State Song . . "Born To Run"

[StonePony]

THE FAMOUS ROLAND MARTIN RESORT was quite a place. Tell us about your experience at the swamp cabbage festival.....do they really eat the stuff? That would certainly explain the odor in the Men's Room next to the Tiki Bar. How about the Martin Girls? There were like a half dozen of the roughest looking bleached blond women in skin tight jeans, FRMR T-shirts, and the most luscious muffin tops in between I'd ever seen that were working there. They all appeared to share an ancestor.

It was hot and humid all day, and we walked to the fairgounds and back. What we saw was a pretty typical county fair kind of deal. We didn't get to see any of the 'special Swamp Cabbage events'.

When we got back we all got together for a pot luck on one of the trawlers, and then finished off a bottle of Yukon Jack. By then the "half dozen of the roughest looking bleached blond women in skin tight jeans" started looking pretty good, and I knew it was time to try to go to sleep. The band was cranking it out, and their patrons were dancing on that 'boardwalk' floor, it sounded like Krakatowa inside a fiberglass drum at the floating dock. That was one of the worse nights of tossing and turning I ever had. . . THEN I went to try to take a shower in that Mens Room. Sheesh, was I ever glad to get home the next day. But just like your experiance there, I won't soon forget it.

[RicM]

By then the "half dozen of the roughest looking bleached blond women in skin tight jeans" started looking pretty good, and I knew it was time to try to go to sleep

If those girls were looking good I would definitely lay off the Yukon Jack. Reminds me of a story. I used to go salmon casting with a group of guys on the Miramichi up in New Brunswick every year. I call it salmon casting because calling it "salmon fishing" would overstate our success rate. At the local Irving gas station they still had girls that were dressed in jackets and bow ties that came out and pumped your gas! We were quite impressed. The joke was when they started looking good to you it was time to head back to civilization. It got so we had a pool, the first one who mentioned the Irving girls on the trip in any context had to buy the first round that night.