Come on, you\u2019ve all heard them.\u00a0 The running yacht jokes. You know: \u201cThe two best days of owning a yacht are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.\u201d\u00a0 Or, \u201cA yacht is a hole in the water into which you pour money.\u201d\u00a0 No one is saying it is always easy, but yacht ownership certainly can be enjoyable – especially, if you are sailing Ecuador and its beautiful Pacific Coast !<\/p>\n
I am fortunate to reside in an area of Ecuador, which offers two significant marina and yacht clubs, within a 7-minute drive of each other.\u00a0 Yachting sure is popular off these southern Ecuadorean shores around the resort community of Salinas, Ecuador.<\/p>\n
A few minutes to the south in Salinas, you have the venerable and extremely exclusive Salinas Yacht Club.\u00a0 Its humble beginnings do not belie the privileged status to come.\u00a0 Conceived on a rickety old pier in the year 1940, the distinctive yacht club arose out of a casual picnic conversation, when the dialog turned to a location to socialize and promote competitive sailing.\u00a0 With the birth of the idea, the yacht club vision was given shape and in\u00a0 January of 1942 the Salinas Yacht Club was formally inaugurated.<\/p>\n
Today, the oft upgraded Salinas Yacht Club has steadily grown, both in terms of structure size, but also membership. The swelling ranks belie a virtual \u201cWho\u2019s Who\u201d of Ecuador\u2019s influential business and political elite, with its well appointed location in the heart of the Salinas Malec\u00f3n (Boardwalk) strip.\u00a0 Membership has grown so much that it is virtually capped.\u00a0 There is a staggering waiting list simply composed of direct descendants of current members, who enjoy priority status for whatever few new memberships may arise.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I tell this next story more so that others can avoid my fate, rather than as any attempt at humor.\u00a0 Sitting at the Salinas Yacht Club for lunch, as the guest of a member, at a table with maybe 12 businessmen, the Salinas Yacht Club Commodore dutiful stopped at our table.\u00a0 After a brief discussion, the Commodore decided to sit at our table for lunch.\u00a0 When conversation hit a slight lull, I remarked kindly to the Commodore about the grandeur of the yacht club and then, in a moment of excessive precociousness, noted, \u201cSo, I understand the waiting list here is rather long. Who do I have to kill, or what do I have to do, to get in here?\u201d\u00a0 Without the blink of eye, or the slightest hint of a smile, the response I received was, \u201cThat\u2019s about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A scant 7 minutes up the road to the north, a visitor to Salinas will find the Puerto Lucia Yacht Club (PLYC).\u00a0 The younger and more modern sibling to the Salinas Yacht Club, the PLYC was founded in 1993.\u00a0 A larger facility, the PLYC also boasts the exceptional distinction of being the only marina in Ecuador that is affiliated with a residential development project.\u00a0 PLYC is surrounded by condo towers and several smaller villas and low-rise condo structures, as well.\u00a0 It has its own strategic location, literally walking distance to the regional mall that services the Salinas metro area.<\/p>\n
Ecuador also offers the Manta Yacht Club, located, aptly so, in the City of Manta and Puerto Amistad found in Bah\u00eda de Car\u00e1quez.\u00a0 With almost 1,400 miles of coastline, Ecuador\u2019s scant 4 marinas\/yacht clubs certainly leave room for enhancement, especially given that 2 are clustered together in the Salinas area and that only 1, PLYC, offers residences affiliated with the yacht club.In fact, for many sailors planning to start a South Pacific voyage at the most favorable time of year, a safe place to dock a boat in between seasons is essential. Most marinas in Central America can be hot and humid. Ecuador offers the perfect place as the weather is reasonably dry and cooler, with the added advantage of being located in the South Pacific itself!<\/p>\n
As such, we always look not only to identify ideal recreational opportunities for our readers, but also to target exceptional investment opportunities.\u00a0 With a recognized global Marina berth shortage and the popularity of the South Pacific sailing routes, an entrepreneurial minded venture could find an excellent investment opportunity in building one or more yacht club\/marina\/residential development complexes along Ecuador\u2019s expansive 1,400 mile coastline.\u00a0 Land assimilation costs would be relatively inexpensive, demand is high and the competition limited.\u00a0 A quality project or two would do quite well here in Ecuador.<\/p>\n
Another lucrative investment opportunity would be the custom yacht building marketplace.\u00a0 With local labor both knowledgeable and inexpensive, the craftsmanship required is available and the costs to build locally would create a built-in valuation edge for retail sales.\u00a0 The current Ecuadorean Presidential Administration is heavily promoting new domestic enterprise ventures, which translates into likely assistance in creating such a business model.<\/p>\n
Lastly, another worthwhile business venture would be the Yacht Brokerage business.\u00a0 A market segment with virtually no penetration and yet a healthy and active yacht owners demographic, it is virtually unexplored territory with a vacuum just waiting to be filled.\u00a0 The Salinas market location would seem ideal for such a venture, drawing not only from the local market itself, but from the commercial capitol city of Guayaquil, situated a short 2-hour drive away.<\/p>\n
So whether your preference is sailing the intoxicating waters of the South Pacific for the sheer pleasure of it, or perhaps considering a lucrative investment opportunity or business venture, chart a course and set sail for the smooth waters found just offshore in Ecuador.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whether your preference is sailing for sheer pleasure or perhaps an investment opportunity or business venture, chart a course and start sailing Ecuador.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":38839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[1977,14216,7456,7731,8195,4339,32056,4272,4118,32058,17289,31835,32055,32053,3233,4053,32057,17291,32054],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Buying-Real-Estate-In-Ecuador.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38842,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38835\/revisions\/38842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38835"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapeartist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=38835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}