Settled on the boats new home

We have searched all of the Marina's in the area we are moving, and have settled on the one that our boat will call home.  It is a relief to have signed a lease and confirmed the details.

There is a fine balance between finding a marina that is going to be so nice, you don't want to leave the dock and finding one that is so bad you have to stay on your boat or leave the slip entirely.  We have been spoiled, as the place where we have our boat now is great.  The marina is nice (good facilities, docks in good shape, large, etc) but the best thing about the place is the people that are neighbors and slip mates.  We have made some of the best friends in our lives in the short few years we have been here. We have talked to other people that have moved and come back to where we are now stating that there is "just nothing like this here"
We had to think long and hard about the new spot.  The condos we will be living in, have their own marina and you get 1/2 price slip rent (that would be under $100 per month to keep our boat there).  That is pretty enticing, but the slips are only decent and not great.  They are fixed piers and that is something that we are not used to, and we aren’t looking forward to the daily "jump" down 3 feet to the top of the boat.  (Worse yet, is the jump up 3 feet onto a 18" wide finger pier)

We settled on Watergate Marina.  This not to take anything away from the others in the area, we just found one that we liked best.  We really liked Seabrook Marina a lot and could get a better price there, but the only slip available was right next to a rock shoreline and we would be attempting to dock on the windward side of it all the time.  If there were any dock line or maneuvering issues, the boat would be on the rocks.  We liked Kemah Boardwalk Marina (in the best shape of the ones we looked at) and you get a 15% discount and preferred seating in all of the restaurants on the Boardwalk with a slip there.  What pushed us over the edge for Watergate were 3 things.  First they had floating slips and availability in a protected location in the Marina.  Second was the Marina facilities (with 2 pools, laundry, restrooms, club houses, a walking/exercise trail, a Shipyard, ships store, canvas shop, boat brokers and more) were wonderful.  Third was the fact that they offered free WiFi to all tenants.  While it was the same price as Kemah Boardwalk Marina, the ability to cancel service for our air card so we have internet on the boat while at the slip saves us about $70 per month.

Decision made!  We are really excited and both of us felt really good about the place after speaking to a few people there as well as a slip neighbor who said most of the boats on floating docs received no damage or only very minor damage during hurricane Ike versus the amount of boats that sank or sustained major damage when interacting with fixed piers in the marinas.

For anyone interested in seeing more about the Marina here is their web link