Our First Guest!

It was three months before we had our first guest stay aboard Wiffersnapper – ’twas none other than my Mah! As a fellow water-lover with dreams of buying a sailboat soon, she was super excited to see our new home and stay aboard.

Prepping For Mom

Her excitement actually worried me a little, because up to this point the boat had been anything but luxurious. As you recall from previous blogs, we had our fair share of issues from electrical, to air conditioning, window leaks and plumbing. So I warned her it was more like camping on the water, than a nice 5-star hotel room.

We didn’t even have a solid working head for her to use! So the scramble was on to prepare the boat for mom’s arrival. Will worked diligently to get two half-working heads, which got us through the stay alright.

Ladies, find a guy who will play in pee water just so your mom has a bathroom to use – he’s a keeper! 😉😻

What else did we need? Sheets! Yes, since she was our first guest, we had put off buying actual sheets for the forward stateroom.

Would she be okay in that room? It’s a lot noisier with water sloshing sounds than our aft stateroom, and has a lot less headroom over the bed. Was the thin “mattress” even comfortable in there? The cats seem to like it, so it must be fine!

The cats helping prepare for mom’s visit

SWFL Experience

It turns out, mom was fine with the forward stateroom and half-working head. Thankfully she’s an easy-going, low-maintenance gal, like myself. Well, I try to be like her at least.

We had a great visit together! From watching sunsets…

to beaching it in January…

to dining out near the water…

to booze cruising on a raunchy, adult-only pirate ship (Yes, that happened)…

It was a true Southwest Florida experience! In fact, we tried so many new local restaurants and attractions that it prompted Will and I to create a TripAdvisor account and start reviewing our visits. We love when people come to town, it gives us an excuse to do all the “tourist” activities!

You Call That Exercise?

While there was a lot of good eating and drinking, we did get some exercise in!

Thanks to Randy and Kim, we borrowed their kayaks and rented a third from the marina so that we could explore the back bay areas. ‘Twas a little windy, which made for a good workout, and enough to work up a good appetite for more eating out of course.

Since we worked our arms so hard kayaking, we decided to work our legs some, exploring the Naples Botanical Gardens. Mah loves plants and flowers, so I knew she’d enjoy this – and so did we!

To make it better, it was “Jazz in the Gardens” that Sunday, and we enjoyed some nice music as we sat on the lawn and sipped our wine.

Just Enough Room

At night we broke out the TV (from the closet, since we never watch TV), and rented a redbox movie, two redbox movies rather! Rebels, I know. We popped popcorn, and enjoyed family movie night like we used to do when we all lived under the same roof in Maryland.

I was worried there wouldn’t be enough space for everyone to spread out and relax… after all we only have like 250 Living SqFt. on the boat. But it turns out, that’s plenty of room to feel comfortable with three people and two cats!

Mah playing with Turbo… while scrolling through Facebook of course.

So, our first visitor and guest of Wiffersnapper was a success! Now we want to know, who’s next??

We have sheets! And you might even get a full-working head. Maybe, no promises. 😃