The Holiday Cove Yacht Club is what Sharon calls “Our own Sea Eagle Navy!”
| “Dear Sea Eagle,
It was great talking to you today about our Sea Eagle…The pictures are of our Holiday Cove Yacht Club, Duane & myself, & Our fellow HCYC trip to the Manatee…Life is good…we are so grateful for the life that Sea Eagle has opened up for us.
Thank You, Sharon & Duane
|
Sharon and Duane Slottje spend their summers in upstate New York and winters in Florida. And when they’re down south they’re part of what they call, “Our own Sea Eagle Navy!”
They have a great spot for their RV at Holiday Cove at Bradenton, Florida. “We’re just a mile from the Gulf of Mexico,” says Sharon. “There’s a canal behind the park that gives us easy access to the Intercoastal Waterway.” She adds, “We didn’t get a drop of oil with last year’s oil spill in the gulf. We were very lucky.”
The Slottjes tow their 33-foot fifth wheel RV to Florida behind their pickup truck. “It takes about 22 or 23 hours,” says Sharon. The Sea Eagle’s easy to transport,” she adds. “We just fold it up and put it in the back seat of our truck. And we put the outboard motor in the back of the truck by the fifth wheel hookup.”
Holiday Cove Yacht Club
When they pull in the park around noon the third day, they’re among friends – other Sea Eagle owners who make up the Holiday Cove Yacht Club. “There are five or six couples in our park who own Sea Eagles,” Sharon tells us. “One from Alaska, from Virginia, Ohio, and all over. We’ve created our own Sea Eagle Navy!”
It all started with one couple. “They had a Sea Eagle and we thought it looked like a lot of fun so we got one,” says Sharon. “It just spread from there and other couples bought Sea Eagles, too. Last summer, through emails with everyone, we had the flag designed and printed up.” Now the whole Sea Eagle flotilla sports “Holiday Cove Yacht Club” flags.
It’s quite a sight to see half a dozen couples in identical Sea Eagles making their way as a group down the Intercostal Waterway. “We get a lot of questions and comments,” says Sharon. “We went up the Manatee River and pulled up on shore. So many people came up and said ‘Wow, this is so cool, where did you get these boats?’ We tell people our Sea Eagle gives us a way to go different places. We go all over as a group, shelling, to waterside restaurants, hanging out at different beaches. Sometimes we’ll just hook onto each other, put an anchor down, and hang out. We go on great adventures.”
“Our group loves to boat to the Mar Vista Restaurant on the Intercoastal Waterway,” says Sharon. We’ll do a little exploring into different canals. Then we go to Beer Can Island at the end of Long Boat Key and have picnic lunches or just hang out with our coolers. We go shelling and just have a wonderful time.”
Like a bat out of you-know-where
The Slottjes chose the Sea Eagle Sport Runabout. “It’s perfect for 4 people. When our kids come down they can go out with us. We take neighbors and friends with us, too.” Sharon adds that it planes easily with a 20HP outboard motor. “We’ve hit some three and four foot swells and I have no fear. It’s very stable. I feel very safe.” But is it ‘the sports car of the sea’ that Sea Eagle claims it is? “It goes like a bat out of you-know-where,” said Duane.
The Slottje family zooms out for a day of adventure in their Sea Eagle. The WHEELS fold down for on-land transport.
“What are the wheels for?”
“People ask us ‘What are the wheels for?’,” says Sharon. “We have a bike rack on the back of our truck and hook the boat to the rack with the wheels down.” Then they can drive it the 300 yards or so down to the launch without any effort at all. Sharon puts “wheels up” and they’re off on their next adventure.
Son, Josh, rigs up the Sea Eagle behind Dad’s truck using a bike rack and Sea Eagle‘s Dolly Wheels
Duane and Sharon have adult kids, and grandkids, too. “Our whole family just has so much fun when they came down here to visit,” says Sharon. “They have a ball. Jeremy gets to go fishing with his dad, our grandkids get to go and look for shells.”
“We have to pinch ourselves”
Sharon summed it all up. “We don’t have any problems with the Sea Eagle. We are just so happy with it. It’s opened an avenue for us for adventure. We do a lot of kayaking and biking but this is just so much fun. Our Navy group is great. I just can wait to take our Sea Eagle on New York State’s Finger Lakes when we get back home!”
Son, Jeremy, and his wife, Meghan, relax and enjoy an outing in the Sea Eagle with Duane and Sharon
Summers in the Northeast, winters in the Florida, great fun on the water with family and friends. “We have to pinch ourselves to think we have this kind of life.”
What a nice post and story. Congratulations to all you folks in the Holiday Cove Yacht Club. Enjoy your retirement years; hopefully we can do the same in the future.
I have a SR14 with a 25 merc
. This is my second boat an am in love with it. Retired this year and plan on giving it a lot of use. I have had it on large bodies of water and found it very stable and safe. Mine is used mostly for fishing and evening cruise with my wife. This year it will get a workout on the salt waters. I hope that at sometime I meet a group like this.
We recently bought a Sea Eagle boat. We’re taking it back to Alaska this summer, but winter in Sun City Center, FL. Would be interested it your club. Please send us info on joining. Thanks in advance. Joyce
Great hearing this story. We have recently purchased and 5th wheel and a Sea Eagle Fold Cat to take with us. The location at Holiday Cove seems ideal for our winter lifestyle. Is there any way I can be contacted via e-mail by the Slottejes to get more info off-line of this blog? It is OK to give them my e-mail address.
A great story for Sea Eagle and Holiday Cove. We have recently purchased a 5th wheel and a Sea Eagle Foldcat that we take with us and are looking for a location in the south for the winter. Is there a way we can be contacted by the Slottjes via e-mail so we can get more info from them about Holiday Cove etc. It is ok to give them my e-mail.
can anyone tell me where I can find a bemini top to put on my runabout sport sea eagle?? I have been looking on website after website and I see one on one site but it doesn’t tell me where to find one. Here in Arizona, a person needs one.
Hi Wendel,
The closest thing we have to that is our sun and rain canopy, which you can find here: http://www.seaeagle.com/Accessories/CoversCanopies/SunandRainCanopy.aspx
And here is a picture of the canopy on a 12.6 Sports Runabout: http://oi56.tinypic.com/34qtzmc.jpg
My family and our neighbors each bought a sea eagle from here. It’s pretty awesome and super durable! Great investment!