Florida Keys Waterfront Homes Guide: Key Largo to Key West

Shane Waterfront Wilson 00:08

SQR.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:05

Yep. I had my first boat at seven. It's a rowboat and uh every day after school I'd go out and row my boat to build my muscles so I could pull start my nine point nine Evinrude My dad said, Shane, you know, we're not putting the motor on the boat till I know you can start it 'cause I don't want to get you out there, have the motor stall and not be able to get back. So that was an uh Oh gosh. Oh, so long ago. That was in Buttonwood Bay actually. I was probably yeah, seven, eight years old. Then from there we uh well should I back up to all my folks who are real estate brokers, builders here on the Keys?

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:46

that's true.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 02:07

Gotcha, gotcha. So it started in Key Biscayne. I was born in uh Miami. Lived on Kiviscaine at um Commodore Yacht Club Actually it wasn't no the Commodore Club, I'm sorry. It's called the Commodore Club. And uh when I was about four and a half or five years old, my mom and dad decided to move to the Keys. So we moved to the Keys, moved to Buttonwood Bay, which is in Key Largo I went to uh Keelower Elementary School, then Plantation Key Elementary, and then graduated Coral Shores in nineteen eighty six. So I'm old.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 02:37

But during that time we had a blast growing up down here. I always had a little Boston whaler. Oh my god, it's been a long time.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 02:44

Yeah. Yeah. Forty? Fifty. No.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 02:47

I'm fifty seven. Oh

Shane Waterfront Wilson 02:51

oh eighty sixty eighty six eighty six ninety six two thousand six yes I'm old. But I have all this knowledge and I want to share with all these people out there because there's a lot of great knowledge. Growing up in the Keys, we go everywhere by boat as kids before we're driving our cars, we went everywhere by boat. I had a job at one lady's house cleaning her pool. Well I went from my house by boat to her house to clean the pool once a week. Uh me and my friends would earn money cleaning bottoms of boats, the barnacles on the bottom Um, we would go out and catch, I think we talked about in the other podcast, go out and catch lobster, stone crab, snapper, cooper, whatever our parents and our parents' friends wanted. They'd take an order, we'd go out and catch it. Yeah. Sell to our parents, our parents' friends, make money for our gas on our boat. Went to Tavernier Creek, Marina. Yes, it was there, you know, fifty years ago. And uh Buy our Reese's peanut butter cups, buy fuel, buy our Coca-Cola. I mean we thought we were the stuff, man. We always had money in our pockets. Me and my close group of friends, we always had money in our pockets, always looking for a way to make money. Always.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 03:46

And um It's just part of the lifestyle you growing up down here. I mean, you know, uh the weekends go out fishing, diving, snorkeling, you know, bringing friends down here, my family's friends that would come down and take them out in the boat and like my gosh, you live this lifestyle. This is Crazy like you live this every day. I'm like, yeah, it's pretty cool.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 04:46

Right.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 04:50

Right.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 05:01

Yep.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 05:42

Absolutely. Well it's interesting. So we have a lot of people who live in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, um, you know, north of Fort Lauderdale that will drive down here in two hours, but they don't want to be in Key West. It's too far to drive or even at Islamorada. So they won't be placed in Key Largo. So they can drive down here in two hours, two hours and fifteen minutes. Sometime, you know, i like with customers from Palm Beach. Shane, we want to drive two hours max, maybe two hours and fifteen minutes. I said Alamrado 's not gonna work because of the traffic. So we sold him a place in Key Largo, which he loved it and he goes, Well I want to have quick access out to the ocean too. I said, Well we need to be in northern Key Largo where we have Adams Cut. Used to be called All you local people called Cross Key Waterways, they call Adam's Cut now for the last twenty years. Um that gave this particular client of ours access to the bay. I sold him a house on the water on the bay and quick access out through Adams Cut, through South Creek or North Creek, out into the ocean. I mean straight out you're you're dolphin fishing, tuna fishing, you're reef fishing, you're snorkeling, you're diving. Uh John Penny Camp is right there. It's a state park Um so that was one application. We have other people that maybe come from Fort Myers who don't mind the drive that say Key Largo 's fine and dandy but we want to be a little further south. It's a it's a different vibe. Yeah. And anybody out there who's been to Key Largo, and this isn't a bad thing or a good thing, but Key Largo has a different vibe than say Isla Marata. Isla Marata has a different vibe than Lower Mat lower Maticombi. Lower Maticombi has a different vibe than say Key West has a completely different vibe than Isla Morata or Key Largo. It's what the client wants. I mean if they're, you know, party, party, party, want to go and have a great time, I'd say go to Key West. Key West is an absolute blast I can go down a couple days and I'm I'm done and ready to come back. I love Keil Largo.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 07:21

Key Largo is great. My dad lives there. Um I personally live in Isla Murata. That's where we are now. uh mile marker 89. 5 I'm sorry maybe back in 86. 5 and I just like the proximity of Snake Creek So like right where we're sitting now, we're on the ocean side. We're on the harbor here. It's called Treasure Harbor. I can be out in the ocean in ninety seconds, literally. And the beautiful thing is that I wanted that was important to me and a lot of you boaters, if it's super rough like yesterday we went in the boat, it was rough. Yep. I said, let me run a quarter mile Go through Snake Creek and get onto the bayside where it's flat calm. And it was flat calm. And your wife was concerned, I don't want it too rough. I might get seasick. I said, We're not getting seasick today. Not gonna happen. The next bridge you have is called Whale Harbor That's where uh Three Waters is and for the old timers that's where um Holiday Isle was and then Postcard Inn. And the world famous Holiday Isle Sandbar, well now it's called the Island Rob Sandbar, is right out front So we have a number of restaurants within five, six, seven minutes away. Um, to me it's important. If the wind's blowing out of the the north-northwest We go on the ocean side and we'd run down to Marathon or run to Key West in the boat. We take a trip probably twice a year by boat from here. We stop at all the bars and restaurants on the way, just have friends. Oh it's so cool. It's so much fun. Really fun.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 09:06

Way different.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 09:17

have a meal, have a drink, sunset. Absolutely.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 09:20

Yeah. Everything is close. Like every town has its own unique Think about it. Like Key Largo, there's a lot of great things about Key Largo. Island Rod has great things about it. Lower Maticombi, Upper Maticombi, Marathon, Sugarloaf Key. If you want to be away from everybody, go to Sugarloaf. I mean Sugarloaf is kind of desolate But people like that. The fishing is off the charts. Lobstering is off the charts, but there's not as many people. Um I just like the vibe of Isla Morata, and this is where I was raised I know these waters, I know the people. I've spent fifty years, over fifty years establishing relationships.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 09:52

A lot of the people here who saw me when I was That big, just a little guy, you know who you are. Said shame you've known you your whole life. And it's something interesting too. We might have talked on the last podcast is that What do we create the business model to kind of match what we did in Fort Myers here? All of our friends are in their forties, fifties, sixties. I didn't think about their moms and dads. Well all their moms and dads are in their seventies and eighties now. Yeah actually, another, you know who you are. You're ninety two years old, congrats. They call, Shane, I've known you fifty years. We trust you. We don't know these other people. Will you please come list our property and sell it? We trust you. We've been here forever. I know everybody here. Well not everybody, a lot of new people. Will sell their house, then they say, Well we want to buy like up in your area, Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Bonita, Estero, Naples. We never figured that in the business model they want to get off the rock. They've been here forty, fifty, sixty years. Right. But I've known 'em since I was that big.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 10:46

So it's just a whole nother aspect we never thought about And again, it's all about relationships. I've been here for 50 years. That's a long time.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 10:54

I'm old.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 12:12

They want to be on the ocean. Yeah. And when I say you want to be on the ocean or on the Gulf, they want the expanse of view. I said, that's great. What kind of boat do you want to have? Well I want the forty two Intrepid or the You know, 44 contender, I said, Well, from this small marker to this mall marker on the ocean it's not gonna work. Well why not? We love the view. I said it's too shallow. I said you can go out two hundred feet and be in eighteen inches of water.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 12:33

Oh, you see the light bulb go off Gulf side, there's some areas on the Gulf side hole. We call Bayside here, we need it further down Sculf Side. Oh side. Yeah, i the thing is that Also if you want a bigger boat, there's some shallow areas. Yeah. Or going to some of the canals, it's shallow getting into the canal. At a low tide they may never get out. They want the big boat. or a neighborhood up here, Plantation Key Colony. Some of the canals are not very wide. And they want to get a fifty footer, it's never gonna work. You're not gonna get in and be able to spin the boat it just not gonna work.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 13:03

So those are important things too somebody says, you know, I want to have a bay boat and I want to have my forty-four contender or my forty-five SeaVee or whatever the boat is, I would probably say, let's go to Venetian Shores. The canals are 100 feet wide.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 13:18

You can build out 25% into the canal. You have to leave 50% for navigability. But then you have room for the bay boat. Uh. You know, some of the lots there are a hundred linear feet on the water, some are seventy. Depends what your application is. But you can have your big boat, your medium boat, your small boat, your jet skis. And you have quick access from Snake Creek. Yeah. To the g the Gulf side or to the Atlantic. They don't think about that part of it. Yeah. Or You know, we have somebody who has a um you didn't end up buying here, a big catamaran. He's got a twenty-eight foot beam, the boat's fifty feet long.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 13:52

There's one neighborhood that would work. That was Venetian Shores.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 13:55

You can't it wouldn't work here. It wouldn't work over at uh Plantation Key Colony. A couple other neighborhoods maybe, but the beam of the boat was so wide it'd be sticking into the canal. You can't do that.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 14:07

Something important too, you know, like on the golf side is people say, well, we love to offshore fish. We love to troll. We love to fish in the reef, yellowtail snap or fishing or snapper fishing. They don't want to have to be in Key Largo and drive down on the bayside for forty-five minutes to get to Tavernier Creek to go slow through the slow zone to get to the oceanside. Yeah. Conversely, people in the ocean may wanna buy in Key Largo, but they're gonna have to either go up to Adams Cut or come down to Tavernier Creek or Snake Creek or Whale Harbor, one of the cut throughs. So that's important to sh you're avid boaters, that's really important to them. You're avid fishermen. Gotcha. We have some people that we sold a house down uh mile marker eighty two a lot and I told the guy, I said, you're not gonna get a boat here because I don't care. I want the view I said, but understand, we're you know we have what's called an observation pier. You have boat docks and observation peers. Observation peers are a special way you get a permitting for a 50-foot pier, 100-foot pier But you technically can't put a boat there. So think about that. At low tide, the rocks are out of water. And I told him all this ahead of time, he doesn't care. So we referred him to a local contractor, built an amazing Home on the ocean. It's like an acre and a half. It is be you feel like you're in Tahiti sitting there, all these palm trees, a white sand beach. He loves it, but uh the boating wasn't important Yeah. That we've sold other properties in the ocean that boating is a big deal. I said, well from this small marker to this small marker it's not gonna work. Why not? I said, Well, let's go hop on the boat. Let me show you because they don't always understand not that they don't they haven't been educated. Yeah, so I take him the boat, we're running along the ocean side, I'm like look, you got four foot, you got five foot, you got six foot, you got three foot a hundred feet out with a pier Now when we come up here he goes, what happened? I said the topography of the bottom comes up shallow.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 15:50

It goes out a half a mile. Like in front of Chica Lodge, it's super shallow. Like really. The islander, it's super shallow But you get further down, there's some areas where it's just deeper, the topography. So they need to understand that too. There'd be nothing worse than somebody buying an oceanfront property And buying that 40-foot boat or 50-foot whatever size it is and find out I can't get it to my dock. Same thing on the bay side. They need to know this. It's really important.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 17:01

Yeah. When COVID first hit, nobody knew what was gonna happen. Like nobody knew. We thought the market was gonna tank out. Then when you had the New York, New Jersey, Chicago, California um Colorado, all those places closed up. We were hit so hard down here with people coming down saying, look, we're leaving our state, we're locked down, we can't go anywhere, can't do anything, and these people have money. They came here and said Well gosh, to get this place in the ocean to get a canal front home, you mean I can get in my boat and go out and catch a fish and come home and cook 'em and go lobstering. Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 17:32

That drove prices up. As prices were going up, inventory shrunk. We have a huge demand down here for the properties here because COVID had everybody shut down. We were basically still open. It was interesting. The prices just kept going ch higher higher higher. Like when's the end gonna happen? Then they closed the keys down And those of you who live in the Keys or try to come to the Keys during that time, at the beginning of the eighteen mile stretch in Florida City, there was a roadblock. You either had to own property or had a long term lease. Otherwise you couldn't get through So I called the uh Key West, I'm not gonna say any names, but the main people in Key West said, look, you basically are choking us out of our business in real estate. They said, Shane Go up and put him in your car and drive him down here. I said, Ugh. I didn't know I could do that. Yeah. So I would have who I used to work with another guy on my team, he'd drive me up there, I'd get in their car, drive down, or drive my car up, pick them up, they leave their car, pick them down. Or my wife would drive me up there, he's also a real estate broker. Drive me up there. I'd get in their car, drive them down. They had their own car, they could tool around. A few restaurants were open, which you had to eat outside, blah blah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 18:38

We had probably four of our largest sales we've ever had in the keys during COVID when it was shut down. Wow. And then my realtor friends of St. Chain, I saw an MLS. How'd you sell that? Like, how did you how'd you do it? I told him like We never thought of that. Yeah. So the prices kept going up, up, up, inventory shrunk, and then once those states started to open back up, the demand we had here wasn't as high. But like Fort Myers prices have come down, the keys have adjusted a little bit, but the demand is still here. Gotcha. Because all these v very wealthy, ultra wealthy people are coming here saying We don't have to go to the Caribbean. We can go to the Keys and have the beautiful water, the amazing boating, the amazing diving, fishing, snorkeling. Yep. Medical is great. You have Miami Hospital right there. You have Learners here. The restaurants here are off the charts amazing. There's so many things to do here and you're still in the United States. Because remember during COVID people couldn't travel internationally. Yeah, you it was shut down.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 19:28

So I think a lot of people who thought the Jersey Shore was the thing that was like the best or California on the coast, P uh was Pacifico Sighways the best.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 19:37

They came here like, oh And now all their other ultra wealthy, super wealthy friends said, Oh, I like it down here. We're gonna buy a place and it just took off.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 19:46

With that said, the keys are still affordable. If you want to buy a home off water have a boat park. We talked about this in another episode, I think. You can buy a home, seven hundred, seven fifty, eight hundred, a million, a nice home.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 20:00

And have your boat on the trailer next to your house. That's what we used to do when I own the house across the street.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 20:05

And then trailer your boat, put it in the water. So in my neighborhood here we have a boat park right there. Oh okay. So I can just trail her Put in there, bring my boat to the dock, or if you're not on the water, you trailer your boat to the boat ramp, you put in for the day, go have a great time, come back, trail your boat out. But you're not paying in excess of millions of dollars to be on the water, but you're in a waterfront neighborhood with a boat park.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 20:29

cool.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 21:05

Uh f uh five, six years, yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 21:25

Um if you had a three bedroom, two bath house, stilt house, apartment downstairs, um Off water you can find something decent for eight fifty nine hundred, maybe a little less than eight, something like that, with a nice boat park where you can trailer put in, go boating for the day. Some of the boat parks in certain neighborhoods say hey you can't keep your truck and trailer there overnight. Yeah. You can keep your boat at the dock, community dock, first come, first serve, for up to seventy-two hours, which is really cool. So you can put in Friday Have your spot Friday night, Saturday, Sunday you gotta pull it out unless you know there's nobody in line then leave it longer. Um ours here ideally they don't like you to keep your truck and trailer overnight. There's a spot for two truck and trailers there.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 22:09

There's other neighborhoods that say a three bedroom, two bath, two story house on the water, say uh Indian waterways. You can pick up something decent for a million five. There's one now for million three fifty Another one from Million Four. Haven't sold yet. They need a little updating, but the homes that are completely updated, beautiful with a pool, million seven, million eight, and then they go north from there to be on the water to have your boat like we have right here in the backyard.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 22:34

Yes.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 22:39

So there's higher level areas um In Key Largo, you probably can get more house off water with a boat park than you can say Isla Murata. Okay, Isla Mara just has that name, it's Isla Murata. Kind of like uh Fort Myers versus Naples. Oh yeah. Naples, yeah, that name Nap very similar. Whereas some people love Islamorada and wouldn't think of going to Marathon. It's just not their vibe. But some people love Marathon. Yeah. Isla Marata is a twenty-eight day minimum rental. If you want to rent your house out for Airbnb or summertime, wintertime, if you go to Marathon, they have a seven day minimum rental. Some people love that. Not buying Alamorata, buying Marathon on the water, rent out their house seven day minimum, and maybe they do an Airbnb where it's rented out three or four weeks out of the month for three months in a row, that they're not using it That pays taxes, insurance, house payment, electric, water, maintenance. Yeah. We have a lot of people who we've sold properties to who say, Shane gosh, that's a that's a big nut to crack every month. I said, but rent it out We never thought of that.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 23:38

So they rented out three or four months. And some of the homes, like in Venetian Shores, you're getting um this is 2026 of March, you're getting anywhere from 16,000 to about 28,000 a month

Shane Waterfront Wilson 23:51

And they pay it no problem. You're talking a four-bedroom, three-bath pool, boat lift, another place for the jet skies. People are happy to pay that. Yeah, they're happy to. You could go to Plantation Key Colony, Indian Waterways, probably find something for ten or twelve thousand a month. Maybe not super fancy, two bedroom, two bath This is March 2026. It could go up in 27, it could go down. Who knows? Well we don't have the crystal ball. But people are so Urgent to get out of that icy cold weather. I mean we deal with so many people said, Shane, when it's thirty below, you got to start your car and it won't start 'cause it's so cold.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 24:25

They come here and we're complaining it's fifty degrees here and it's blowing twenty knots. We're like, it's so cold like Shane, you don't know how cold it is, man. You have no idea. And a lot of them bring their boats because it's uh twenty eighty minimum rental. They bring their boats here. They have their boat. They have the best time. Yeah. They'll send me videos. Look where you were today. I'm like, well, you gotta go to Hens and Chickens, go to Alligator Light, you gotta go, you know, fish here, go fish here. You gotta go to this restaurant, go to that restaurant, go to that bar, but go to this bar at this time to watch the sunset. Oh yeah. So we talked about this earlier off camera, this is important. I think a big mistake a lot of brokers make when they're dealing with people is They make the sale, they don't talk to the people anymore.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 25:05

I had people call me from thirty years ago. I've sold them four and five and six homes over thirty-three years. They call me like in the Keys. They need a plumber. They need electrician. They need a roofer. They need a pool guy. They need a boat mechanic. They need somewhere to haul the boat. They need to go to a boat ramp because Founders Park, they can't pull their forty-foot boat out. We'll go to Harry Harris Park. Well, how do you know that? I said, 'cause I grew up here, and that's where we pull out the big boats. The ramp goes a lot deeper. My 32 contender at low tide at Founders Park, which is across the street, I have a challenging time. At low tide, I can't get my boat off the trailer and I can't get it on because the tide drops so low. Yeah. The ramp doesn't go deep enough. So if I know I have a low tide, I can go to Founders put on but I can't get it off because not enough of the trailer goes underwater.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 25:48

There's so many variables I get calls every but I love it. I get to communicate how the kids, how the grandkids, how the dogs, I mean and then when they have friends come to the keys Wow, this is really cool. Call a realtor, Shane. Yeah, but we you know we saw in this magazine call Shane. Just call Shane. I mean, and I'm thankful and grateful, so thank you for all the referrals from my family, friends, past clients. Not 97 % of our business is a repeat business. And my grandpa taught me as little, take care of the people, the money will follow.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 26:20

And what I see so often is so many brokers get in at realtors and say No, you guys make all this money and then you don't want to do what you do. It's not about the money, man. Help the people the money will follow. I had a I had a realtor about maybe three months ago say, What's your production last year? I said, I don't know. He goes, you don't keep track of it, I go No, I don't know. There's certain companies that train you, you gotta do thirty billion sales, or you wanna do five hundred thousand a year. Hey, if you take care of the people and do the right thing, if that's not the right property for 'em, don't buy it. I'll I'll tell them that. Three homes this year so far in Cape Port on Waterfront. The buyers are never here to see the home. I did the FaceTime, I did the videos, you walk through the house, you think, open that door, open that closet, you know, let me see. What do you think, Shane? I said, I think it's a great value. Okay, well buy it. I mean that's trust. That's a big deal. I had a dude from Canada who is a financial advisor. There's no time to come down. I think I looked at seven homes for him. He goes, what do you think? And I said, this is the home I never met him. After we closed, he drove down with his two dogs, two super old dogs. Um he walked in the house. I happened to be there doing like a walkthrough and he was coming that night. He was early. This dude. Just like a dude This is amazing. How did you know? I said, well you told me what you wanted and what your needs were and you got to have a three-bedroom, two bath, and you wanted to have the big pool, you want to have two boat lifts because you have two boats. He bought a boat. This guy, I don't won't say your name. You know who you are though.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 27:53

He bought a boat side unseen. Really cool. Like a catamaran with twin three hundreds on it. He goes, hey man, he goes I'm having it delivered to uh not Marine Max in Fort Myers. Yep. And I said, yeah, he goes, um, I can't find a captain. Nobody will bring the boat from here to Cape Cross. I said, I'll do it. He goes, what Go do it. He goes, You Captain of Sonome, not a captain. I don't want that liability, but as a friend, I will bring your boat for you. Delivered it to Marine Max, got on the boat His left sponsor was full of water, the high water alarm was going off, but of course nobody there knew what that noise was. Beep squealing. Yep. There's a float That sets off the bilge pump. So when the water it was broken, I got on the boat, the boat was sitting like that. I'm like, oh my god, I'm looking bilge pump, bilge pump, pump the water out, it's fine. But I took his boat to his house Took it to the uh um outside of the uh there's a thing called a captain's walk. You have the dock, you have the lift where the boat goes and captain's walk. I had to park it here, then I called our marine contractor yeah we have They adjusted the bunks, did all the stuff to make the boat fit.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 28:53

Yeah, on the lift. When he came in town, his boat's on the lift. There's a boat When he bought the house, the seller left the boat. I had the other boat moved over here, replaced the batteries in it, the batteries were dead, and it was sitting in the water, blah blah. I guess the point is It's all about that client service. He was so thankful. He walked in the house. He's out of it. Dude. I'm like, dude. I'm like, yeah, he goes, dude. This is awesome. This boat was there. I referred my boat detail guy. So I think I tell people this, it's not about the sale. It goes along after the sale. We want to help the people.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 29:24

I deal with a ton of people And I'll make sure you don't open the yellow pages, not that they use yellow pages, and get the wrong guy that you pay him to do something never shows up. My people will show up, they care, they take pride, because it's a direct reflection on me.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 29:38

I mean it it just is, so

Shane Waterfront Wilson 30:06

Yes.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 30:08

It is.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 30:26

100%.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 31:21

when we were having breakfast this morning here? Yeah. And I walked outside, Dan called me. He's from Canada Um I ran a s boat slip so I had a boat slip in Fort Myers. He goes, Hey man, he goes I'm not gonna say the guy's name 'cause whatever. He goes, Hey, do you know so and so who does the washing, waxing, and um oh what's that clear coat they put on the boats? Um oh my gosh. The um oh my gosh, I just had it done on my boat. The clear coat, what do you call the uh I'm totally drawn to butt anyway he called today this guy called me today and was telling me about doing my boat and he came out and looked at it And uh he said, you keep saying Shane, Shane Wilson? He goes, yeah. He goes, I know Shane. I did his boat. The dude did my boat. I'm like, you're good to go. He needed a diesel mechanic, my son, diesel. So we sent one of my son's guys out to fix the boat There are probably five different guys that have gone out looking at his boat, people I know and trust. Mm that looked at his boat, took care of his boat. Yeah. And it's funny like, oh I know Shane. And then when people will call maybe random people, say, hey, I'm looking for a whatever it may be, somehow Shane comes up. Shane, the waterfront guy, Shane.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 32:22

We service this customer on you know Congo Court or on Ephraim or on whatever the street name is. Yeah, we take care it's just a small, big world that makes sense. Yeah. And I trust my people a hundred percent. They have the same value. They want to have the repeat customers. Yep. They're not the one time go out, fix something, and be like, I don't need you, I'll get new customers. It takes a lot af less effort, energy to keep the people you have and take care of them and it just flows.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 32:49

It just flows. It just does.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 33:29

It's natural, man.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 33:44

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 33:52

I am yeah. That's just how that is. I can't help it.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 34:22

Yeah, I think it's really, really important. I mean there's so many things that we've talked about. I think one of the key things is why we've done so good and we're always busy. Even when the market slows down, we're always busy. And I have realtor friends say, Shane, how are you selling four and five homes a month? How? You know, I haven't sold a home in three months. It's just the repeat business that we have, taking care of the people. My grandpa taught me something and I read a lot about it. You give a busy person a task, it'll get done I've read about these big CEOs of companies and these multi-billionaire people and they interview the people that are close to them. If they get a text within five seconds, ten seconds, their response Within if they get a phone call, they can't take the call, they're in a meeting, they will say, I'm in such and such meeting, I'll call you back in thirty minutes, I'll call you back in an hour. Set the expectation, you'll get back to 'em. That means the world.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 35:09

I'm so ADD off the charts. Like right now I'm trying to keep myself calm because I'm so excited. I've got so much stuff to do while you're here. If somebody calls me, I want to answer right then, I want to get it done. Yes. When the auto mechanic guy calls, immediately. Got him the warranty information for There's so many things that I do in a day. Like if you go through my text, there's gotta be eighty to hundred text a day of different things, but being ADD off the charts, I got it. Everything's up here. Everything is up here. It's

Shane Waterfront Wilson 35:41

So when I was a kid, they thought I had problems. I got kicked out of three preschools. I was off the charts, bouncing off the wall's bad. And my parents like, What's wrong with them? And thank God my parents would not let them put me on drugs. They wanted to put me on um what's that medicine called? They put hyper kids on drugs.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 35:56

Adderall um Adderall. Maze Adderall or whatever. Whatever it is. Yeah. My parents said no. And then my son Wade is just like me bouncing off the walls in school. They were gonna hold him back in third grade. He couldn't sit still, he couldn't take the reading test and answer the questions He just he couldn't do it. And they said you need to put them on medicine. Don't put your kids on medicine. And that's your personal choice. But we didn't. Wade is prospering in his business now. He's able to multitask and do all these things and work these long, crazy long hours, which he chooses to building his business. Now he's setting himself up for suc success now. For the future we won't have to work as much as he works now. But yeah, I guess my point is to follow up what you're saying, be good to other people. Somebody reaches out to you and needs something, get it to him. Don't wait till tomorrow to call him back or the next day to call him back. That's horrible People wanna be what do you always say? They want to be heard.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 36:48

A hundred percent.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 37:34

Some people touch. Yeah, and some people

Shane Waterfront Wilson 37:43

Just be genuine, be yourself. Yeah. You know, everybody that knows me and you'll ask 'em. Shane is the overhelper. I think we talked I'm always wanting to help somebody. Like, dude, you're helping everybody. Don't you have time for you? I do have time for me. I have time for my wife. We work really hard. Yeah. We play really hard. Yeah. It's funny when people we'll meet new people like Anne, how do you stay up with that guy? She goes, it's hard, but we're on the go all the time. Yeah. And my wife does need her downtime, so I keep pointing. She's inside there. Oh her downtime sometimes what I get. And when she's doing her downtime, I'm Fixing something, working on the plane, working on the boat, doing something, or talking to past clients, answering any questions they have, or just catching up with them. How the kids I mean it's You gotta love what you do and you and I were talking the other day about uh a realtor that I know that wants to do Good in real estate, but they hate people.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 38:35

So I'll leave it at that. They're in the wrong business. They're in the wrong business. It's a people business.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 38:47

You have to. You got your team of agents. You gotta pick up the business. You have to love what you do. And in the previous uh podcast we did, my grandpa taught me, he goes, Shane, just pick out something you love to do.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 39:04

And if you do something you love to do, you'll never work a day in your life. Now don't get me wrong, real estate can be very stressful. Yeah. Blenders, title companies, buyer-sellers, getting divorced, people stressed out. You know, buying and selling is one of the biggest decisions somebody makes besides divorce and death. It's a big deal. It's very stressful. And I'm constantly counseling husbands and counseling with wives and we're psychologists, psychiatrists, we are Oh my gosh, we get to closing and there's something wrong with electrical and it's not gonna close. It's the end of the world. I said, I got it. Call my electrician, dude, I need you there like now. No problem when you need a chain. Get it done. Yep. Get it closed. That's so you gotta love what you do.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 40:03

Right on. Cool.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 40:08

Yes we are.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 40:35

Everybody says it. Uh you cover the big bridge, the blue bridge coming into the keys. It's like

Shane Waterfront Wilson 40:43

It just it's it changes and as you get further south it gets even better and better.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 40:58

Nope.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 40:59

Nope.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 41:05

off the table. Like

Shane Waterfront Wilson 41:19

Yeah. There's one way in and one way out. US one. So it's really hard to get lost if you're coming out US one You can only go so far to the right, you run into the bay. Yeah. You take a left, you run into the ocean. We have Publix grocery stores, Windixie grocery stores, we have the CBS, we have the Walgreens here. There are a couple Burger Kings, we have a Wendy's down here that just opened up. Um in Islam Morata Mile Marker 86. 5 we have a Publix about three miles down the road. Okay. We have Wendyxie about two miles up the road So there's plenty of grocery stores.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 41:55

Marathon has Publix, Key West has Publix, anything you could possibly want. Marathon has Home Depot. Or you drive up the homestead. Yeah. So anything you could possibly want, you can get we have one furniture store here, um Royal Furniture and Keylager, which is nice. But most people go to Miami to shop for furniture, Florida City or Homestead. Anything you could want is here. Talking about restaurants, we have some of the best restaurants. The call Ziggy's Con. I call it Ziggy's Conk. Now they call it Mad Dog Ziggy 's Conk is like one of the best. Chef Michaels is off the charts. Kayo is off the charts. Square Grooper is off the charts. Um Oh my gosh. Loreley's are really good for sunsets. Papa Joe's sit there on the upper tiki bar and the sun tracks during the year, you know, sunset, yeah, certain times of year could be here. Here you're sitting up on this tiki bar on the second floor, looking at these amazing sunset views. Um there's a ton of restaurants by water. I mean there's The food is outstanding. Yeah. Oh, another one, uh um Fraggler Station at Whale Harbor, where the old Whale Harbor uh all you could eat used to be.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 42:58

Off the charts good. I mean there's Kindler, there's um There's so many great places.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 43:33

they have to be good.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 43:47

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 43:49

There's an abundance of grocery stores, restaurants, marinas, uh gas stations. Um yeah, there's an abundance.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 44:26

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 45:11

Yeah, it depends on where you want to be. If we have some Miami people, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach. Um, Delray, they typically like to stay in that key largo, maybe come to Islamorada because of the drive.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 45:23

a lot of Fort Myers Naples people. They don't seem to mind the drive, the three hours, four hours, four and a half hours to come to Islamorada or go to their marathon house. A lot of people that we sold properties to boat from Fort Myers or Naples to their house in the water here. Oh yeah by a boat. I mean they can just zip down on a column day you check the weather of course. I've also got a couple customers I've sold homes to who are pilots They fly right into Marathon.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 45:47

And their house is five minutes away. I sold another house down south, um, Summerlin Key. I talked to the airport manager there, Matt, and I think it's like thirteen hundred bucks for six months or tw 2000 a year, something like that. So my client would fly into Summerlin, he had a car there, go to his house, spend the weekend here, go back to Summerland, fly back out, fly back to Fort Myers. Yeah. So I have people in Key West I've sold properties to it. They'll take the Key West Express from Fort Myers or Marco certain time of year and take the Key West Express to Key West, get off the boat, spend the week or weekend or however long And then they'll hop on the Key West Express and take it back. Or they'll fly from Miami to Key West. Yeah. Fort Myers, I think I have a direct flight now from Fort Myers. Pretty sure RSW two key west.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 46:52

Yeah, that's on a good day.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 47:00

Yeah, no.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 47:02

Bridges, traffic, you got holdups. A lot of uh US one is forty-five miles per hour Yeah. And it just it slows you up. And if there's an accident like on Al um uh 18 mile stretch, forget about it. You're stuck. And you can't really go anywhere. You can't turn around, so you have to sit there.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 47:18

So that's It can be challenging.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 47:58

You're right, because a lot of people say, oh, your mile marker 86. 5 Oh, if I'm running seventy, I can be there an hour and fifteen minutes. I'm like, yeah, you're not running seventy. It ain't gonna happen. Number one, the cops pull you over. Number two, the traffic doesn't move that fast. Nope. From Isla Morata, Malmark eighty six to Key West is typically about two hours. Two hours and fifteen minutes. Yeah. Um if I'm showing property in Key West I'll go to Tavernier, hop on the airplane, I'm down there in twenty-five minutes. Yep. Land. They typically have a loan or car or a call ahead of time. If they don't, I'll rent a car. Yeah. Um the other day I had a guy call on uh our Duck Key property, beautiful property, just dropped at 200 grand. It's four point two Amazing house on the water on Duck Key. Got the phone call that morning, late that morning by eleven, I was in my plane. Flew to Marathon Airport. My friend who works at the car rental place next door, Robert, had a truck sitting there, got out of the plane, walked over. Hi, fifteen gallons, opt-in truck, one ship property. They love the house, by the way. drove back, dropped the truck off, plane was fueled up, hopped in the plane, flew back. I was back in so there and back in four hours. It was done.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 48:57

It was that fast. And driving would have been to Marathon, Ducky would have been a four and a half hour drive

Shane Waterfront Wilson 49:24

You can fly to Key West, out of Marathon. Key West is more commercialized.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 49:27

Marathon will have commercial flights. They're opening it up to commercial flights. Key West, like our friend across the street, Matt Flies into Key West.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 49:35

And then from Key West, his wife and son will pick him up and then come back to Alamrod. Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 49:42

No, no.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 50:23

I have to normally prompt them into it when they say we want to buy a place on the water. I said how big is your boat Well that doesn't matter. I don't know, but it does matter because some of these canals you can't get into, some of these ocean front homes you can't put your boat at the dock, it's too shallow.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 50:37

Oh, okay, I have a thirty-five foot whatever, SeaVee contender, whatever it may be Okay, then we have these options. This neighborhood, this neighborhood, this neighborhood. And that would work. I said if you want to buy on the ocean from we mentioned before this mile marker to that mile marker, it's gonna be too shallow. What do you mean? I said you can build a pier Not an observation pier, but a pier for a boat and go out two hundred feet or a hundred and fifty feet, which you might be in two feet of water. But when you have your boat on the lift and you put the boat into the water You have the I beams and the bunks that'll sit on the bottom and your boat's still out of the water. It's not gonna work.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 51:11

If you buy on a canal, say um Plantation Key Colony, you can only go so far out into the canal. Some of this canal is only like forty feet wide, fifty feet wide, so you can go out twelve feet. If your boat has a thirteen foot beam Not gonna work. Yeah, it's just not. So finding out the size of the boat, how many boats they wanna have. If people want to have the larger boat and the bay boat Venetian Shores, Indian waterways, you have to have enough linear water frontage.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 51:38

that's important. But I think the depth is the most important thing. You know, I can see right there, I can g get out to the channel, yeah, but from here to there it's two feet. Yeah, it might be five feet there and it might be ten feet at your dock, but you gotta get from here to there. It's not gonna work. And the beauty of what we do is we're avid boaters We hop in my boat and just take them by boat and show them. Yeah. Wow, my boat will never get through there. I said, yeah, that's what I was trying to tell you. I get it now. Is it always that shallow? I'm like, yeah, in Michigan you don't have tides. Chicago, you don't have tides Oh take them out in the boat. Yeah. They can see where you can and can't get. They get it then.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 52:13

So then it's like, hmm, I want to have my big boat. Okay, that neighborhood won't work, that house won't work, ocean front won't work unless you're at a certain area.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 52:20

But you gotta be from here. I've been here fifty years, fishing these waters, diving these waters, snorkeling these waters. I know where the fish are, I know where I mean I know where the deep water is, I know where the shallow water is. I know how shallow it gets at low, low tide. It's a problem for a lot of people

Shane Waterfront Wilson 52:42

Oh, that's what I was saying. I'm so sorry So they don't have tides in Michigan or Chicago. Yeah. Sold a house to the guy in Fort Myers. I said, whatever you do, you know who you are Don't go through this channel at low tide. Oh yeah, whatever, I got it. He went through at low tide. Two both props, prop shafts. It was really expensive. We have tides in the keys. There's certain channels I'll take at a high tide, like yesterday when we were out in the boat. We're running along and said, Charlie, see how shallow that is. I said, on our way back coming the other way, that sandbar is gonna be out of water Coming back, luckily we're on the bay boat, you know, I don't need a lot of water. My big boat we couldn't come back some of the ways we came because the water was maybe eighteen inches, maybe two feet. It's very shallow. High tide you have four feet, maybe four and a half feet. So the tides are a big thing here.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 53:26

No, not just for fishing. You know, anytime you fish in the creeks you want moving water, a moving tide to fish When the the tides slack, the fish typically don't eat. I don't know why, but they just don't. But you gotta know your tides here.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 54:00

Yep.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 54:24

crop scars through the grass. Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 54:52

Most of the keys is in a flood zone. There's some areas that are not in a flood zone, but most of them are. A lot of our higher end people who pay cash for the properties. They self-insure, you probably heard of self-insuring. They don't carry flood insurance. Yeah. You know their flood insurance might cost them five thousand, ten thousand a year. They'd rather not pay flood insurance for twenty years and just have that money set aside in case it does flood, then they can fix whatever happens. A lot of my people don't carry wind insurance. It's expensive in the keys. They'll carry hazard and liability. If it burns down or somebody breaks in the house or falls and gets hurt. So that way they can save a lot of money on the insurance. And those are homes that are paid for. Homes that have a mortgage, you gotta have flood, you gotta have wind, gotta have hazard. Insurance prices in the last probably six months are starting to come down. For a while though they went through the roof. It was crazy. But now they're starting to come down, which is good. Um there's an area in Plantation Key Colony which is up higher, which is in the X zone, non-flood zone, so flood insurance is not required.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 55:49

So not paying flood whether it's two thousand, three thousand, six thousand a year, they can buy a house, affordable house, eight hundred thousand, seven fifty, seven twenty-five. Not in flood zone and trailer with their boat literally two blocks away to the boat ramp, have their boat in the water, yeah, and not pay the high flood insurance But most like the area where we're here, I pay flood insurance. Um just because we're right on the water.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 56:11

that can be costly, but prices are coming down. Um I guess it's a buyer's application. Do they want to have it as a second home, third home? Do they not want to pay the higher price, higher taxes to be right on the water Maybe they come down part time of the year to use the house that's off water but have the access to a boat park in the neighborhood. Yeah. That's a huge deal Huge deal. Um it all depends on what their application is.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 57:27

No. These Johnson Evan Reed motors They're thirty-five, forty, forty-five years old. There's no rust. Yeah. They look brand new. Yes. There's no rust, no corrosion. The boats here in the salt, you have to flush your motors. You have to wash your boat. You gotta rinse them off really good or you're gonna have a rusted, corroded problem. You have to do it.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 57:51

It's about a year and a half sitting there. It looks horri does it not look horrible. Yeah. And it was

Shane Waterfront Wilson 57:56

No, when he had it, or I could say names here The boat was immaculate, waxed every three months. It was perfect. Now looking at it sitting in the water, it's it's all tore up. But he's not taking care of it.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 58:07

And the motor mount is all rusted and corroded on the gear case.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 58:25

Slip fee, you got boat insurance on it. Okay. Not to mention fuel, of course.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 58:30

maintenance, annual maintenance on it. You know, some people come down and go, hey, I want to buy a uh a triple engine boat. I said, all right, well that's good. What's our application? Well, you know, I just want to run to the back bay. And I said, well, number one, you're not going in the back bay with a triple boat. It's just not. It's too sharp. Oh you're gonna go to the Bahamas? No, I'd never go to the Bahamas. I'd maybe out in the Gulf Stream, you know, trolling. I said you just need twin engines. That's all you need. I said if you have three engines, that's three maintenance a year. It's twelve hundred bucks a motor, it's thirty-six hundred bucks. And if you blow a gear case and without a warranty That's five to seven grand, maybe eight grand. You gotta think about all this stuff.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 59:01

So there's so many variables they don't think of. They think about okay, I'm gonna buy a boat for two hundred or four hundred or five hundred, whatever it is. and I'm gonna put gas in it. No, you got annual maintenance. And when you put gas in it, you're going to the marine, it's five fifty, six bucks a gallon. You're not thinking like when you pull up to a gas station where it's three dollars a gallon. It's double when you're on the water. Almost double. They don't think about these things. So uh like you mentioned a couple times, what is your application? Yeah. You want to go to the Bahamas, get a boat with twins, triples, quads, whatever. You can be there fast. What is your application? How much money do you want to spend? How much do you want your fuel bill to be? I mean some people buy a boat by house and then a fixed income, they're retired, they have a pension. And maybe they can spend X amount of dollars every month on the boat for fuel. These are things I need to know. Tell me these things so I can help you. I can better serve you.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:00:05

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:00:09

They gotcha.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:00:39

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:00:55

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:01:29

It was important. We have a jack plate. A jack plate brings your motor up and down vertically like this. So some of the spots went yesterday. I said Charlie I'm gonna jack the motor up. Why? He said well look in the back. So it brings the motor up about seven inches That means your skeg and your prop come up seven inches. We're running in maybe eighteen inches of water. Doesn't hurt the bottom, doesn't hurt the grass, the prop never comes anywhere near it. But you have to know ahead of time. We don't want to be that guy like the prop scars we saw yesterday, all through the s the grass. I mean this i it's environmentally sensitive here. You have to be very, very careful and know where you're going, know what you're doing. And there's certain channels I won't take a low tide Because it'll tear up the bottom. I'm I'm not gonna do it. There's certain areas you want to go through that are solid of rock bottom, which I've got stories and stories me hitting anyway, yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:02:28

Yep So

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:02:54

No. No.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:03:07

When you're running skinny, you can trim them up

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:03:09

Maintenance is a lot less cheap.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:03:45

I got people in Key West, Marathon, Olimer, I got people in Fort Myers. Um what's

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:03:58

So we were in Key West of Stock Island and uh I take it back. No, that was a different summer. We were in Key West and um Oh my gosh, what's the marina? Anyway, long story short, Wade and uh Boogie and myself are gonna go fishing. So we're in the 48 Cabo and uh I need four and a half foot of water to be safe. And I'm in the channel. And the sun's just coming up, so you can't see the bottom. So I'm coming around a corner and all of a sudden the boat goes, boom, boom, boom. I'm like, so I grab the throttles, pull him back away. He looks, he goes, Dad, I go, Wade, be quiet I know what he's gonna say. Wade, get your mask on, go jump in the water. So he did go Stad. You cauliflowered the the props. Basically They're thirty-six inch wheels. They're big brass props. I hit both of them, peeled 'em back. So we gimped back to the marina, I put them in gear in the boat, shaking along, because now they're out of balance. I was sick to myself.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:04:50

you have to go super, super slow. You can't run fast or

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:04:55

deal. So we got to the marina and I called a couple of plates. And they went three thousand bucks to pull my props off and uh put the new props on at five bay blade federals down.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:05:07

To have those props we worked, actual cost to fix both props cost me 3,500 bucks.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:05:13

Both.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:05:14

Didn't replace them. Brand new. They were Veeams. They're super expensive, like $25,000 each, the props. So

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:05:33

Yeah, it was thirty four hundred bucks, something like that. So uh I called another prop company and I said, you know, what do you charge to pull the props and put my other props on my federals Oh they're the four blade federals actually and uh he's like twenty eight hundred. I'm thinking, alright, I'll call you back. I said wait, I'm not paying twenty eight hundred bucks. So I have a hookah rig on the boat. Hooker rig is the thing that floats in the water, you keep it on the boat. It's got the long hoses with the regulator So way down with two Ace Hardware and Key West. I bought a aluminum monkey wrench. It was this big. And I bought a four foot galvanized pipe to stick over the wrench. I have a prop pulling kit in the boat. Like we put on the boat. So of course you do. Yeah. Well yeah, I'm so anal. I trust me, I have a backup plan in my backup plan and my backup plan. So my wife is sitting inside here somewhere. She goes, I'm gonna time you guys. I'm like, oh great.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:06:23

Yeah. So waiting I jump in the water, hooker rig, we're under there. I'm looking at him like I've never pulled props before. I'm like, I'll figure it out So pull the the pin out. There's a big cotter key we pulled out. Pull the big nut off, second nut. You have a prop puller that screws into the prop, and then you have another big nut which you have to spin the big nut and then spin these to pull the prop off. Yeah. Because they're they're pressed on these big three quarter three inch stainless steel shafts. So long story short, got both props off, tied a rope to them, popped them off, pulled them out Then the problem I had was getting the new props are like 120 pounds, they're super heavy. You can't hold it 'cause it'll sink to the bottom. And at the marina it's like twenty five feet. I'm like, hmm. So I got our big fenders, great big fenders, and I tied the props to them and weight I lowered them down so We pulled them under the water and as you bring the fenders under the water, the pressure of the water compresses the air. So I could move 'em and maneuver them under the water and slid them on the shaft and put the nut on real quick so it wouldn't slide off. Long story short, that was a thirty-five hundred dollar mistake Inboard. Inbound inboard outboards, they're a thing of the past, in my opinion. I mean you can't trim them up high enough to get out of anybody's way if you're in shallow water. Although when you have outboards, I made a mistake in the 39 contender coming out of Tavern Creek. I'm gonna tell the story, and you know who I'm talking about right now, a lot of people It's kinda shallow there. And I had a quad boat in front of me and had a triple boat in front of me and I had uh my buddy Craig on the boat, his daughter and who was with me, uh who else? His daughter's friend. I had four hundred and fifty gallons of fuel, forty gallons of water. Mike looked the quad boat just took off.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:07:53

It's kind of murky. I've been out of this channel a thousand times since I was like seven, eight years old. I hit it. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Oh my god! Oh my gosh, no, no, I throttle back and I idle out and I get out of the channel. I trim it up. My center motor, there's one coral head. kinda offset the middle of the channel. I hit it. So the prop hit the coral head, it just tweaked it. It just blew it out. I mean the whole thing blew it. All the oil leaked out of my This really sucks, but I should have known better. And I called probably about four different friends that work at Marinas looking for a gear case. I had to buy a new one Nobody had one, so I called uh contender. Wow and Joe Niever. And long story short, you got a new gear case, but that was about a five thousand dollar mistake.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:08:40

You have to be so careful. I knew better. I had four hundred and fifty gallons, I knew better But I thought, oh the quad boat took off. He got up on the plane. The boat uh triple he got up on the plane.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:08:51

Just be careful, but I've made the mistakes. I've run aground. I've run out of gas. I've done it numerous times. If you don't ever run aground and you don't paint off your skag on your motor You never leave the dock. Remember yesterday I went by the boats, I said, look, those boats are probably two, three years old, but there's no paint off the skegs.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:09:09

No.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:09:18

And they just sit.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:09:25

I'll see something cool with that manatee. See him stunning himself. See mother.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:09:29

That's bad. That's how

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:09:34

Yeah, he's sunning himself right there. And with the manatees at our dock yesterday, when you hose the water of the boat, the water drips off, they drink the water. Yeah, I'll get sidetracked anyway.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:09:46

bad man. So we

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:10:31

Well, the full moon. Remember last night?

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:10:47

Everything, yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:11:18

Absolutely. We have a lot of people who buy homes here who aren't here full time. And when they're not here, they'll put it in the Airbnb. And we have a lot of local rental companies, which I can refer them to, that will rent the houses out maintain the house but they're not here. They deal with all the issues that come up electrical plumbing, air conditioning, because you're paying a fee when they rent it for you back to the rental company.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:11:38

But the homes that either they pay cash or have small mortgages, they will cash flow. They will cash flow. That's a big deal. So instead of you feeding a house three grand, four grand, five grand, ten grand a month You're actually either breaking even or you're making a little bit of money and you're enjoying the appreciation of the property too. Some people have been coming for years renting for a month or two months or spending, you know, eighteen, twenty, twenty five thousand dollars the UFCs. So if they rent for two months it's fifty grand. Well they could maybe buy the house, own it for five or six years or longer, enjoy the appreciation, rent it out where we're not using it, and it cash flows. So the renter is paying their mortgage, paying their taxes, paying their insurance, paying the maintenance, the electric bill, the water bill. Yeah. That's that's huge. That's huge.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:12:46

So that's

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:12:57

But it's a tool. It's a tool. So a lot of people say I'm retiring in two years, three years, five years, seven years. They want to buy at today's prices, today's interest rates. Nobody knows what's gonna happen in seven years. Are prices gonna go up? Are they gonna go down? Are rates gonna go up, go down Historically if you look at the graph over thirty years, I have so many people say I should've bought six years ago. I should have bought fifteen years ago. I should have bought twenty years ago. Yeah. Shane, remember we looked in the keys however long ago. I should have bought then.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:13:22

I said yeah, but I wasn't pushy, I did you weren't ready.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:13:25

So if they buy it today's times, today's prices in seven years, historically prices have always gone up. Data doesn't lie They can rent it out for that three to five years full-time. Maybe they want an annual person where it's less hassle dealing with like short-term rentals or triple your money. So maybe you would get Five to six thousand a month doing an annual rental, rent it out every twenty eight days. Yeah. And get fifteen to eighteen thousand a month It just there's so many different variables and then when that three to five years goes by you know how fast time goes. As we get older, it is going by so fast Five years is here, the house is paid for. They sold their business. They sold their house. They got a big fat wada cash in the bank. Now they're gonna come here in the keys full time They're gonna buy their dream boat and maybe the dream bay boat. Yep. Shane, what should I buy? We help pe you told me this, my wife told me many years ago, Shane, you need to get your boat broker's license

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:14:22

so much money with all the boats I've helped my clients buy and sell. Sell, upgrade, downgrade The but the money's not important to me. Like I said, don't get me wrong, you got bills to pay. I get it. I just enjoy helping people.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:14:34

And helping teaching them how to run their boats. Yeah. I mean in Fort Myers, a good friend of mine know who you are. We took his boat to the Bahamas. He's like I'm from Chicago. Whoever would have thought I'm taking my boat across the ocean to the Bahamas. Like the Bahamas and like there's no land in sight. And what if we break down? Well, what if the sky falls? Well, what if we run aground? Well What if the sky falls? I mean i he was just amazed and I've been to the Bahamas my whole life. I go to Tortugas or uh Marquesas, I mean, or from Fort Myers to Key West by boat. It's uh an amazing trip It's just cool to share that with people and tell them, hey, you need to get this kind of boat. Well, can I take my 22-foot bay boat from Fort Myers to the Key West? I wouldn't suggest it. I mean in a calm day you could, but you get in a squall in the summer

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:15:21

Not a good idea.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:15:23

No.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:15:34

I would say are you buying a home in the keys to live in full time? Are you buying it part-time? Are you buying it just strictly for investment? Do you have a home you're selling or business you're selling up north to do a ten thirty-one exchange? That's a way to uh basically sell a property up north, never touch the money. buy an income producing property like kind in the keys. So you don't have to pay the capital gains of twenty, thirty percent. Right. Um or is it somebody wants to buy it today's prices, they have money to buy it, get a small mortgage And put it in the rental pool so they can come use it two months out of the year and rent it. I need to know that information first. Number two, are you an average fisherman? Do you like to dive? Do you like to spearfish? Would you rather just sit on your beach on the ocean and not give two cares about boating, but love the sunrise 'cause you're an early person. Are you the kind of guy that doesn't care about boating but wants to be on the bay side to see that spectacular sunset every night. Track across the sky from June to December. You don't care about boating, but you want to be able to go out at night and watch that sunset and live your dream. What is important to you?

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:16:36

I need to know these things. If boating's not important, hey man, I got some great properties on the bay or on the ocean that It's super shallow, but you'll have the view, the expanse of water. You're not staring at a neighbor. You may say, hey man, fishing and diving is my life. You know, I've dreamt about it. Like several clients we've Introduce them to this lifestyle. They fish all the time. They dive all the time. Whether it's lobstering, whether it's dolphin fishing, tuna fishing They the boating was more important. They don't care about having a neighbor across the canal. He wants his offshore boat here and his bay boat here. He can go out to Flamingo in the backcountry, which you need a bay boat or a flats boat that's super shallow. Or it's big boat to run twenty-five, thirty miles out.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:17:13

To go deep dropping for snowy, snowy group, or swordfish or whatever it may be. What is your application? What do you want to do Let me just give you the advice I have and the knowledge I have. I've been here fifty something years. And it I can honestly it's it's always worked out. I need to get the information so I can give you an educated answer. I need the information I don't have anybody that's ever said, oh, we made a bad choice. Oh, I'm so sad we bought this. Oh, I'm disappointed I bought that. No. Ask the questions Give me the information. We'll make an educated decision and you're gonna dig it and love it. And then of course when all their friends come down and say, Oh my gosh, look at the view. We're gonna buy a place here too. Call Shane. Well no, we saw an ad in this magazine. Call Shane. Call Shane. And they call and it's like it

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:18:30

100%.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:18:37

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:19:28

Buttonwood Bay, yep.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:19:39

a hundred percent. Some are on the bayside, somewhere on the ocean side. When you're that far up in Key Largo, I need to know are you going to be like a bay boater, casual boater, evening cruise, cocktail boater, or you're gonna be an avid fisherman? I need to know which side of the island you need to be on. If you're in that part of Key Largo, you're gonna have to drive in your boat north or if you're farther north, drive south to cross Key Waterways, Adams Cut as everybody knows it now, to get out to the ocean sides, through South Creek, past Penny Camp, or through North Creek, to get out to the ocean. If that's not important to you, well then we'll say something on the base side. Each one of those neighborhoods offers something special. Some are way more affordable than others. Some of those neighborhoods are super old homes, so the values are kind of here But you get in a port largo, you've got homes from 1. 5 to 9, 10 million dollars. You've got the old strip of land that used to be the airstrip right on the ocean here. Those homes are oh gosh, nine million, ten million, fourteen million. What do you want? Like what do you want to have? Do you want to have the ocean view in Port Largo and right behind your house you have protected dockage? That's a big deal. Where you can have your 50, 60, 70 foot yacht. Anything bigger than 70 foot, you gotta wait for high tide because the canal is like 20 feet deep, but getting from the canal into the ocean it comes up to about six feet But you have to know that. You can't just have a ninety foot whatever and say I'm gonna come and go whenever I want. Yeah, that ain't gonna happen. A good friend of ours, John, and Sandy love in Key Largo, and he's got a seventy foot D fever. Big like uh a big cruiser. He can't get out at a mean tide. It has to be high tide or he hits bottom.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:21:12

And the good thing about that boat is it's got a keel. Then the props are up here. So when he does hit, he hits the keel, not the props. Oh, okay. So he's good. On the other side, um The other neighborhoods you mentioned are on the bay side. Some of those you'd have to come further down and go through Tavernier Creek, part of it's an idle zone, out to the ocean. So they're all great neighborhoods. It's it's whatever your application is. It's good for the people in Miami, Fort Lauderdale Um West Palm Beach, who don't want to have to deal with traffic all the way down to Island Marah, Marathon, Key West. They're happy driving two hours, two and a half hours We had some people we sold in um I forget the name the name of the neighborhood from West Palm. He goes, Shana, I don't want to drive any further than two hours and fifteen minutes. I said then we need to be at mile marker I think I told 'em ninety nine or north of ninety nine. Sold em a great house, bought it right. This is eight years ago, we sold it two years ago for 'em He made like 300,000 bucks. Wow. So he got to use his house and made all this money on this house and he loved it. So a great area. Again, it depends what is your application.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:22:20

Kahiki Harbor. Kahiki. Which is right off Tavernier Creek. Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:22:25

Uh let's see, that's probably mile marker 8990, right before Tavernier Town. It's on the south side of Tavernier Creek. So you've got Kahiki Harbor, Plantation Key Colony, you've got um other neighborhoods on the ocean side that give you direct ocean access, which is a big deal. Tavernier Creek is the bridge is only so high. So if you have a boat with say big outriggers or second station where you're fishing.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:22:55

I'd come in from the ocean I'd have to go up into the flybridge and flip down that's got this canopy top, flip it over to get under the bridge, drop the outrigger. So the guys are in the back of the boat pulling the outrigger, holding them down so I got through the bridge. Yeah. So great neighborhoods. Um You have great access as far as if you buy on the bay, you have quick access to Tavernier Creek or Snake Creek to get out into the ocean. Conversely, if you're on the ocean side and it's really rough, you want to go on the bayside, you go through Tavernier Creek Or go through Snake Creek.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:23:22

It's great neighborhoods, great area. Shopping's right there, Tavernier Town, Movie Theaters, Winn-Dixie, restaurants, galore.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:23:33

Yeah, Islamorada.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:23:35

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:23:43

Upper and Lower Matter.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:23:54

So like where we are now is called Treasure Harbor. We're at mile marker eighty six point five oceanside. So the ocean is literally Well you were out there in the boat yesterday. Yeah, it took like a minute.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:24:05

Idling to get there, yeah. Not like some Cape Coral canals where you jump right out. That's another series.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:24:16

No. No. Different sort of French and Michelle. That's a whole nother story. But anyway, so um Kahiki Harbor, you're on uh Tavernier Creek, minutes out to the bay, minutes out to the ocean. Come down to Plantation Key Colony, same thing. When you come out, you've got Tavernier Creek here, or Snake Creek. You're in the bay in a matter of minutes Come on the ocean side near the high school, Coral Shores High School, where I graduated in eighty-six. I'm old. I don't feel old though. I feel like I'm twenty-five still. Anyway.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:24:43

Beautiful neighborhood, deep water. Um you come a little bit further south to Venetian Shores. One of the key factors and highlights of Venetian Shores is the canals are a hundred feet wide. You're not gonna find neighborhoods that have a hundred foot wide canals anywhere from seventy to a hundred linear feet on the water. It's right across the way at mile marker 86. That's on considered Bay side.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:25:06

Half a mile. Yeah. Halfway. You got it. Yep. The beauty of that is literally when you come out of the canal you can go to the bayside immediately or go to the ocean immediately. Like immediately with your big boats. There's a 65 foot Viking, 70 foot Viking, there's another um I don't know if it's a brow, or it's like seventy-five feet long, those boats can come and go not a problem because you have deep water.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:25:27

You come into my neighborhood here in Treasure Harbor Right at my dock right there it's thirteen feet deep. However, when you get outside of the harbor where they stop dredging and digging the rock out, it goes up to about five feet. Oh high tide is five foot. So when I kept the forty seven or forty eight cabo here I can only come and go at high tide. Mm-hmm. It low tide or mean tide. Mean tide is not high, not low, but mean tide or low tide. I couldn't get the boat out. So I would book it, spots on my dock in the pile, say, okay, all the all the barnacles and uh stuff's underwater tells me it's a high tide, I can get out. And sometimes I'd come back from Key West in the boat or wherever we were, and I have to anchor the boat out, bring the dinghy in, wait for high tide. When high tide came I take the dinghy back out. We like a little zodiac thing without board. And bring the boat in. Um in the 42 Intrepid when we bring it here. I have to be careful. I gotta trim my motors up as I'm going out. I can come and go even a low tide, but I've gotta idle out and I've gotta idle out four hundred yards offshore before I drop the motors in and get on it because when you take off the boat the stern

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:26:32

Correct. So this is Treasure Harbor, you've got Venetian Shores You mentioned Port Antigua, great neighborhood, good water, deep water. They've got a uh their own private personal beach called White Marlin Beach. So not only do you live on the water, you can pull out of the canal and go to your beach or access the beach from land.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:26:50

Uh safety harbor just south of that, another great neighborhood, deep water. They got big boats in there uh very private and then from there keep heading south.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:27:02

Yes.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:27:05

You're wide open on the river, man. You're okay. Yeah, it was

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:27:38

Some people love Duck Key. I love Duck Key. It's awesome. A little further south than I personally want to be. We sold a lot of homes on Duck Key. Um when you go down you take a left on a little bridge. It's an island. You can only go over the bridge to get to the island to get to the houses.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:27:52

They have a place called Hawks Cay there, which is world renowned resort. It is Stunning beautiful. It's amazing. Restaurants, bars, huge pool, kitty pool, adult pool. Really beautiful. And then just outside of Hawks Cay on Duck Key, you have another restaurant there. They just opened back up after the storm. They've got um It's a little like a convenience store to shop for like milk, eggs, mustard ketchup. Not like a Publix or a Wendixie, that's further down a marathon. Duck Key On the island you have all these canals that intertwine through the island and they have amazing water flow. The water is always crystal clear, brilliant aqua blue. It is beautiful. It's just beautiful. I love Ducky. So a lot of houses there. We actually have a house listed there now, which I'm surprised it hasn't sold. It will, but it's uh it's amazing.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:28:41

from there you go a little bit further south towards Marathon. You have Key Colony Beach, which is another great neighborhood. It's just fantastic. There are duplexes there, single family homes. On the beach side, you've got homes there start at three, four million up to like ten million dollars. Um homes on canals anywhere from five million, five, million six, you know, north of there. Great neighborhood and then you have a lot of neighborhoods on the bay side that have acreage. We have one listed now it's three acres on the water for three

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:29:10

That's rare.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:29:13

Redid the dock. He built a slip for his fifty-two foot Viking Express so he can pull in there in his harbor, spin the boat around, back in, and still has Hundred and twenty linear feet of dockage and a boat lift here, a twenty five thousand pound boat lift. It's an amazing property. The house is older, old Florida style, but you've got three acres on the bay. And there's a restaurant, you got Farablanca, you've got so many restaurants, marinas there, which is Outstanding. So and you can do seven day rentals in Marathon. Yeah. Out on Radha twenty-eight days. So that's appealing to some people.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:29:45

Investment side, we sell a lot of property in Marathon because you can rent it out minimum seven days. Yeah. Meaning that you could have technically four seven day rentals. A seven day rental might bring six, seven grand, eight grand, maybe some houses, ten thousand for the week You do that four times in a week, it's forty grand. Whereas here the same house it'll probably be twenty -four, twenty-five thousand for the month.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:30:06

So investors love that. Also in um Key Colony Beach you have duplexes. A lot of people own the half, live in that part-time, full-time, and rent out the other side. Ah

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:30:16

offset expenses. Yeah. So there's so many different variables there.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:30:44

Yep, no name key, yep. Kudjo key. Yep, cudge, yep.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:30:48

Yep.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:30:51

Saddle bunch key, yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:30:54

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:30:55

Boca Chica, yeah. Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:31:04

Lower keys they're Not that the keys, the entire keys is not conscious on like nature and keeping the trees and keeping everything the way it is. You get to Big Pine Key, they have key deer. Key deer.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:31:18

Yeah. They're little guys. They're like forty, fifty pounds. They're they're tiny. When you get on a certain part, you have to slow it down thirty miles an hour. You'll see key deer feeding on the edge. Oh we had a property in Big Pine Key right on the bay in Spanish Harbor. Beautiful property. It was about at 1. 1 acres. Every time we go there, nearly every time, they'd be a mama deer, a baby deer, a daddy deer. And you can't feed them, you can't touch them, it's like the manatees. But they come right up to you like, hey Feed me. I'm like, I can't feed you, I'm not supposed to. They like they come right up to you. They're the cutest little thing. So they're very in touch with nature there.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:31:50

Keeping everything the way it is. You have to have There's so much to do to build a house down there, it's almost impossible to build unless you have like a TDR or something like that. Uh transferable development, right?

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:32:01

or robo points or had a house on the property one time you scrape it, then you can rebuild your house. There's so many rules and regulations. Yeah. But they're very in into like Summerlin Key. Summerlin Key, I told you earlier in the in the podcast, they have their own little airstrip. So we'll fly in there sometimes too if I'm showing property. We sold a great property right on the point. Looked right out over the bay. It was beautiful. But to show the property, yeah, I'd have to go down there. I'd hop in the plane, talk to Matt at the airport, and I paid a fee, whatever it was, I forget now, um, to land my plane. Either Uber or my buddy had a car there and I go show the property. So they've got their own airport. So that's in important to people from uh I had a guy in um Ocala I sold a house to on the airstrip. He had a boat in the backyard He had his airplane, I forget what he had, he had a single engine. I forget what it was now, this is ten years ago. But he would fly in from O'Cala with his family, his wife and kids, boat all weekend, fly back. Yeah. Like an hour and a half he's back, maybe an hour and forty minutes. Yeah

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:32:59

Yes, it's far Yeah. They drive that, it'd be a twelve hour day. It'd be silly. So that was pretty cool. And then you get further down to like Big Pine, uh, Little Torch, you've got They're just desolate. You have houses here and you're on the water and there's nothing there. Like you're grocery shopping, you gotta go to Key W Key West or go to Marathon. I mean nothing. But it's So much nature, the aquatic birds, the great blue herons, the white egrets, the it 's beautiful. Really pretty, but it's desolate.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:33:49

Yep Uh

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:33:52

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:33:55

So Key West is amazing. It's a big tourist hub, but it has a different vibe. It is a blast. I mean they I can tell you so many stories growing up and going down there, even now present.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:34:16

Key West. Fantasy Fest every October. Oh, I do. So Fantasy Fest where the women

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:34:21

body paint and it's That's about it. That's it, yeah. It is just a cool vibe. Everybody's happy. Everybody's on vacation. There's so much to do, so much to see, so many great restaurants, great bars. Yeah. Waterfront properties are amazing there. Um Sunset Key was called Tank Island years ago and as a kid we'd take our sailboat down there and it was just a vacant island, so they developed it. You can only get there by boat. So Sunset Key is amazing. You can get reservations to eat at the on-site restaurant there. You gotta get in their little ferry, they'll bring you there. It's kind of expensive, but it's worth it. Um it's just amazing. Key West, I mean you've got Uh the beach, I th Fort Zachary Taylor Beach, you've got Hemingway's uh house, you know, Ernest Hemingway. Oh my gosh, Mel Fisher. Oh my six-toed cat, yeah, yeah, six-toes. There's just so much to do. Great restaurants, like I said. You've got tons of marinas if you come by boat, like we'll go by boat and stay like at the galley and leave the boat at the marina, stay inside. Or if we bring the big boat have a cabin, we stay on the boat at the marina. You got City Docks, you got um uh there's a ton of places to go there.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:35:58

No.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:36:05

A hundred percent.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:36:09

There's a few chain restaurants down there, but most of them are independent restaurants, which are off the charts. Like Better Than Sex. I don't know if you've been there before. It's not sex. It's called Better Than Sex, but it's a dessert restaurant. Is it chocolate? Chocolate. Oh yeah, yeah. Farmage. Insane. You go in, it's real dark and you get the red velvet on the walls and the ceilings and they had the sangria that they dip the top of the wine glass and the chocolate and they put the sangria in it and These desserts y you don't like eat dinner before you just go there and sample these different desserts off the chain. And then they've got these amazing restaurants right on the ocean or right on the harbor. And the seafood there is fresh because when you're having seafood The boats are pulling up, I'm watching them pull up. Grouper, Mahi, you know whatever the catch of the day is, lobster coming from the boat They're hauling it into the restaurant, taking to the kitchen, thirty, forty, fifty minutes later you're eating that lobster you just watch them bring in or the grouper or the mahi or the yellowtail or the mutton snapper, whatever the fish may be

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:37:10

It's not

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:37:11

It's fresh. And the air, it just smells like The ocean. The sea. It just smells so

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:37:23

And then you have so many bars to go to, like um at the galleon, they have their tiki bar. So we stay at the galleon. We'll go down there and have drinks at the tiki bar. overlooking this expansive water view, sunset keys over here, and these sunsets are off the charts. It's just I can't even explain it. And you got Mallory Square, are you good who Mallory Square is one of the performers are?

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:37:48

Yeah. Yeah. They can't do that anymore. Yeah. Yeah, they can't. No, no, that was way back in mind. But yeah. It's just a a different world. Would I want to live there full time? No. My wife wants to get a place in Kewa. She loves it. I couldn't do it full time. I love Isla Morata. This is my home. This is your sweet spot. This is my sweet spot. Yeah. And I love Key Largo. I love, you know, there's certain islands that I love for what it offers, but this is my sweet spot here. I love Key West. We go like I said twice, sometimes three times a year by boat And then from there we'll shoot down to uh Jar Tortugas, you know, Fort Jefferson, or we'll go to Marquesas and stay on the boat and camp out. Wrecks, reefs, whale heads.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:38:38

And I go right to it, I jump in the water and there's a big old red grouper or a gag grouper or whatever it is. I mean Right there or i it depends what we're targeting, or lobster, or whatever it may be. Yeah. We go back to US, we cook it up. There's a ton of restaurants there that'll cook it for ya.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:39:05

A bunch of restaurants. You catch your Mahi or your tuna or your snapper or your group or whatever, you bring it, they'll cook it for you. You're eating a fish you just caught.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:39:14

That's really cool. Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:39:40

Right, right.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:40:06

Yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:40:22

120 miles yeah

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:40:35

Not really. You've got Man Key, Woman Key, some other islands, I forget the names of them. You've got Marquesas, which a great fishing there, a lot of coral heads, good lobstering. And then you go past like Rebecca Shoals until you get to the Fort, Fort Jefferson.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:40:57

Yeah, uh we were my buddy's boat, he's got a thirty nine North truck with quad four fifty Rs. We cruised at seventy five eighty the whole way, so we were there like hour to five minutes. I mean we were fast.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:41:07

Well you know it's interesting. So having quad four fifty Rs We're running 70, we're getting about 0. 9 miles a gallon. Buy boat with twins, because you have four motors. You're not pushing them hard. The boat goes close to 90 In my boat I'm running fifty, I'm getting about one point one. So the fuel economy is about the same.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:41:24

So even though you have four motors or five motors, they're not working as hard unless it's a big, heavy boat where you need two thousand horsepower, three thousand to push it So we made it there and back. We burnt uh couple hundred gallons, whereas, you know, a fishing boat, a regular fishing boat would be two hundred and seventy gallons. They're pushing those motors hard to run at 35. I'm running at 70 My boat I'm running at fifty. The other boat we ran about fifty-five. Okay. We went to the Bahamas with the contender. All through the islands we cruised at fifty miles an hour wherever we went at one mile per gallon. So I knew in my head I have four hundred and fifty gallons Here's where I can go, here's my range. Then you have to find fuel in the Bahamas. That's a whole nother thing we'll talk about.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:42:05

Because some islands don't have fuel. And so I 'm not sure. The barge hasn't come to bring fuel. When we were doing the

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:42:24

After the hurricanes in the Bahamas, we took five boat trips with supplies, generators, fuel, water, medicine, whatever they needed we couldn't get fuel. There's no fuel because the marinas were all underwater. When the soft water went into the fuel tanks, there was no water. So I had to calculate all right, three hundred and fifteen gallons, I'm gonna burn a hundred there, fifty here. I got back one time after we went to um It's called Grand Bahama, West End, then you have Port Lucaya, Port Lukaya Waterway. You have a town called Sweetings over here in McLean 's town. That's another forty miles. They were cut off from the mainland like seven days. No water no food. Yeah. That was kind of scary 'cause you pull up it's like the town is leveled And all of a sudden these Bahamians just start coming out and it was just horrible and so sad. And they're like, Hey, do you have any water? I said, Yeah. Three hundred cases of water between me and the three other boats that had enough fuel. to get there. When I got back to Fort Lauderdale, I had twenty two gallons left in my boat. I cut it close, but we dropped off generators, fuel, water. We had I think two hundred and fifty boxes of the MRE military meals that had twenty packets in each box.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:43:26

They had no food. They had no water. They're on an island. That's a whole nother change. Well

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:43:54

Hammered them.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:44:06

A hundred percent. I don't take all the credit, so uh Brent Stokes Marine Got us all together. Called, hey man, you want to do some really cool stuff? Michael Eddie goes. We got uh GoFundMe to help with the fuel because we spent thousands and thousands of fuel coming and going. I go, yeah man, what do you need? He goes, you know, can you take one, two, three trips? I go take as many as you need, because in my business I'm able to maybe hand things off because this is important. People are starving. I mean there's no food, man.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:44:37

trips there were boats getting shot at The Bahamians, I'm not saying they're bad people or desperate,

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:44:47

You live or die.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:44:51

She's like, I don't want you going over at Sidane. We can't not help these folks. I mean They weren't being malicious, they were trying to survive. There's n you're on an island. You don't it's not like in the mainland in the keys you hit with a hurricane. You go to Lauderdale, you go to the west coast of Florida, Fort Myers, you can eat, buy water, food, right, shelter. There was none. There's nowhere to freaking go. And yeah, I'm not gonna say about the Bahamian government. I'm not gonna go there because I don't want to get in trouble. Whatever. They weren't not a help at all And we made these trips back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And eventually i there were so many people, it wasn't just me, there were thousands of boats and thousands of people that Gathered the clothing, gathered the food, gathered the generators. So many generous people, veterinarians giving us medicine, heartwarm medicine for the dogs and cats, because mosquitoes are bad there. You never think about it. It was donated. We had these huge bins full of clothing for these folks. Oh, that's a good thing. We had generators are donated. I mean so much was donated But I had the skill to be able to get the boat there and, you know, a dozen other boats, not to mention not in our group. Every time we went, you'd see a dozen, two dozen other boats heading over. We'd be coming back. You'd see dozen, two dozen boats going that way. We're coming back. I mean it was like a highway on the water from Boynton Beach, uh Fort Lauderale, Miami coming across to Grand Bahama West End, closest point Yeah. And then we went to Put Lukai, cleared customs. Something for the customs people and the immigration, hats off to them when we would come back from Port Lukaya and pull into Fort Lauderdale to the marina there, they would help us load the boats back up with water supplies, the customs agents, the immigration agents.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:46:26

They didn't run us through the customs, oh let me check your boat. Nobody's running drugs when you're saving people's lives. They were helping us load our boats. I got hours of videos and pictures I somehow could put online of them helping us load the boats and going back. It's eighty seven miles across. So we'd go in the morning, cross when it's calm, offload all the supplies, come back, pick up another load. They're helping us load it and go back. We'd come back, they'd Oh, I remember you from last time. It wasn't Everybody helped everybody. It wasn't just Shane and Anne. What a call of

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:46:56

It was amazing, man. It was Sad times too. These people lost everything. I would I would fly over to the Bahamas and I'd call uh Miss Rose, who's my taxicab driver, or I'd call Brenda. I said, Brenda, what do you need? She goes, I need a bullet. I go, Brenda, I'm flying my airplane here. I can't bring a bullet. What do what do you mean? She goes, I need a bullet. I go, Brenda, I'm not bringing a bullet. I don't understand. She goes, the ninja bullet You put the vegetables in it and you twist it.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:47:22

That's what I thought. I go, what? And she was pots and pans. I go, Pots and pans? She was Shane. When the storm surge came it blew in my front doors and blew out my back doors. I lost my furniture, my pots and pans. We lost everything. So we load up my plane full of pots, pans, you know, from all the

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:47:37

Necessity stuff. What else did she want? Um there's so much stuff we brought over there. Yeah. Well why not we're getting off track. I don't mean to get off track. It's just

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:47:46

To give you a

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:48:43

Brent Stokes, Stokes Marine, yeah. He used his commercial property and the offloading and we had hundreds of volunteers organizing clothing. Organizing the medicines, organizing food, can, diapers, wipes. You don't think about this stuff.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:49:14

Well all the boats over there, the Bahamians boats, like in Hopetown, were sank. The whole the whole fleet. Uh you know, I think there's uh th twelve or thirteen ferry boats All sank. Yeah. They all sank. There was no boats to get people from here and there. I got so many stories I could tell you and that's a whole nother time.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:49:39

100%.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:49:59

I got people in here.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:50:10

call me, text me. So what's the

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:50:13

239-8513861. That's my cell. If I'm with people, I won't answer, shoot me a text. I'll respond immediately. I always do seven days a week. This is what I do. I mean I don't know any different. This is what I do. People are like people are like, you work seven days a week? I go, yeah, but it's kind of fun Get to show property, take customers in the boat, go fishing, dying.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:50:34

and don't get me wrong, it's challenging when you have issues with like financing issues or title issues or home inspection issues. It's part of the game, but I wouldn't do anything else. It's just super fun. Call me or text me. Hey Shane, I'm Jane or Joe. I saw your podcast or I saw your Instagram or your whatever. Give me a call. I'm interested. I have questions. I'll call you back. It's easy peasy. It's not

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:51:03

It's been a blast.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:51:45

Joe's. It's like a fifty-two foot. cigarette or 52 foot something with six motors in the back. Six. He went straight out across the flat and there's videos all over it. Social media you'll see it. He's flooring it and tearing up the grass and the mud's flying. He didn't think just put it in reverse and back off and go through the channel that was right there or go back the way.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:52:06

Ten yards. Twenty uh not

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:52:10

Or the right Alpha Mark channel. With the red and green markers, you stay in the middle? Yeah. I don't know what this dude was thinking. I mean you could clearly see it was a sandbar with a grass flat. which the grass here is very sensitive. You know, it's eel grass. It's it's in it's important to our environment. It's a it's a nursery for the small fish, the crabs. He was right on it and just b and m grass and stuff's flying everywhere. It's horrible. I mean Anyway, yeah.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:52:39

Yep.

Shane Waterfront Wilson 01:53:25

Have a great day. Take care.