Although Ye Yaodong envied A-Guang and the others for being able to rest all winter and wanted to slack off himself, he was also afraid that taking too much time off would bring out his incurable laziness.
He had not yet reached his ideal retirement age of forty. With his goal set, he still had to work a little harder.
Besides, there were not many days in winter when he could go out to sea anyway. With all the days off between fishing trips, he could just about keep going. Only by earning more could he buy more boats, become a boat owner, and retire early.
The trouble was that boats really were hard to find and buy.
His father had been asking around for a month without finding anywhere to buy one. He later heard that the thirty-odd-meter boat the Salvage Team had rented before had been bought by several people pooling their money.
Still, even if it had remained available, he could not have brought himself to buy it. It was too expensive, and the operating costs were high. Buying it would empty all his savings, and if anything happened, it would be hard to sell on.
He had never been that ambitious anyway. He still wanted to play it safe and advance one step at a time. No one could get fat from a single mouthful.
If he still had not found a suitable boat by the end of the year, he might hire a couple of boatbuilders or order one from the shipyard. Having a new one built would let him make it a little bigger, with a larger boat cabin for sleeping. Then he could spend a few days fishing in deep waters instead of staying near the coast.
These days, individuals had limited funds,