Boats N Hoes

A few years back I got to hang out on a boat with my family to celebrate my son’s 19th birthday. My best friend, Britt, sent me the “Boats n Hoes” video. I thought it was a SNL skit or something. I didn’t realize it was an actual video from a movie (“Step Brothers”, in case you didn’t know).

When my brother sailed my youngest son and I to Catalina Island from Long Beach in March of this year, my friends and I decided to take him up on the offer to sail us to Catalina. We set the date for the first weekend of June, which happened to be the same weekend as the Catalina Wine Mixer.

After I finally watched the movie, I got so many references! (Like, most of the references over the past 14 years made sense.) 

Anyway, Britt and I planned out the weekend, inviting 5 of our closest girlfriends to board my brother’s 41 foot sailboat for an extended weekend getaway. We put together goodie bags to welcome the other girls onboard, and got small gifts for the Captain (my brother) and Co-Captain (his friend).

Five of us girls arrived in Long Beach on Thursday evening and set out to get familiar with the boat, grab dinner from a food truck near the pier, and go grocery shopping to stock the boat for the weekend. (Two of the girls were unable to go.)

Early Friday morning, we set sail for Catalina Island. The girls worked together to prepare meals, keep the boat clean, help each other with sunscreen, and just relax and enjoy the experience. The guys set our course and let us do our thing.

Once we arrived, we set out to explore the island. We rented golf carts and went around, stopping to take in the view and snap some pics. The girls had one cart, while the guys and an acquaintance of my brother’s that we ran into took another. We stopped at the little restaurant by the golf course for a drink and small lunch, then returned the golf carts.

We did some sightseeing, shopping, and exploring before returning the boat. The guys went below deck and hung out while we sat on deck snacking, talking, and playing games. Everyone was a bit tired so we just relaxed the rest of the evening.

Saturday was a full day. We did some more exploring on the island, checked out a couple of different restaurants, did some shopping, some of us got readings from a local psychic, and we all went parasailing. I was the only one out of the group who had done it before, so it was nice to be there for some firsts. My brother and I went up together. It’s rare that I get to do something with him that he’s never done before these days, so I enjoyed that quite a bit.

We headed back to the boat with a couple of hours to spare before a nice dinner at one of the nicer restaurants on the island. That’s where I got to experience my first time on a paddle board. I didn’t stand up, but did straddle it and paddle around for an hour or so with one of the other girls. We made friends on a couple of nearby boats and enjoyed being on the water.

Dinner was amazing. We ate good food, had drinks, tons of laughs, and just enjoyed each other’s company. Some drunk guy joined our table for a couple of rounds of “Never have I ever,” which he initiated. He was actually rude to one of our friends, but one of the girls countered with, “Never have I ever been rude to a pretty girl I didn’t know at a restaurant.” That became one of our favorite moments of the trip. He even gave her kudos for calling him out.

Sunday morning we headed back to Long Beach since us girls had a plane to catch. Overall, my brother was quite surprised that he actually enjoyed us all being on the boat. I’m not sure what he expected out of the women in my life, but I thought that was kind of funny.

As for us, there were five women in very close quarters for over 80 hours straight without a single disagreement, any drama, or issues of any kind amongst us. It’s somewhat rare for a group of women to be in such close quarters for an extended period of time without tripping over one another or getting on each other’s nerves.

But we didn’t. As a matter of fact, we probably could have stayed another few days or more without any issues. These women are truly some of the kindest, most honest, and humble souls I’ve come across. I’m beyond blessed to get to experience these kinds of weekends with this group of women. And I’m most grateful for my brother’s generosity in inviting us onto his boat for the weekend.