After looking at the photos of the filthy Hobie tandem, I figured this clean tandem deserved a BUMP. It's still available.

Modifications: original seller corrected, price lowered after a check of my records revealed I'd gotten it at a lower price. 

 I bought this boat in May, 2008 from Spike (corrected - I mistakenly put Mooch's name in the original post). At the time it was a new boat, minus one trip he'd made to Hog Island to check the handling. Despite lots of assurances and good intentions, it's turned out that I'm living with a family of flakes. In over two years, I've never had the boat in the water. Having it on the trailer is interfering with my ability to take one of the singles out, and I'm getting fat waiting for the family to warm to the notion of kayaking. So it's time for it to go.
  You can probably find the original ad from May, 2008; it was still here the last time I looked. The boat's blue, has what appear to be very comfortable removable seats (which have been taking up space in the covered bed of my truck for over two years now), and is in excellent condition. Almost immediately after buying it, I had a custom cover made for it, which has remained in place ever since. I don't recall whether I added anything else to it or not, but if I did, it wouldn't have been anything more than Scotty bases or such. Anything like that should be considered lagniappe, since I can't remember and don't want to invert the boat to check.
  Price is $700 firm, cash or PayPal, first genuine offer takes it, and I'll deliver free of charge in Marin or Sonoma Counties, or within about 45 miles. The boat's located in Novato. PM me for any additional information.

  Some of my problems squirming into my drysuit probably stem from my body proportions - longer torso and shorter legs than most people of the same height. But none of us thought to mention one other great thing about Kokatat - you can have a suit built to fit you better. I'll definitely be doing this if I ever wear out this suit. Hopefully they won't mind my quoting their site:

SPECIAL SIZING
Kokatat will increase or decrease the length of the arms, legs, torso (above the waist) or rise (waist to crotch) on most of our dry suit models for a nominal charge. The adjustments we can make are limited in scope and depend on the model and size of the garment; please contact Kokatat or your paddle sports dealer for more information. Since everybody likes a different kind of fit, we cannot build or alter a suit to a list of body measurements. If you believe some customization will be necessary, consult with Kokatat or your dealer. We will even send a sizing suit to the dealer for you to try. You can then determine how much to add or take off. Please exercise caution: when you get a custom dry suit, it's yours. No returns will be accepted (other than warranty)!

Try Forstner bits, unless the required hole is just too big. They do a great job on kayaks, even the el cheapo sets from places like Horrible Freight (mine's better than that, but all of them will do the job).

Just 15# Floroclear to the swivel, heavier mono from there to the hook. That's never given me a problem on any fish; the rig is a spiral-wrapped Seeker CLBF708 live bait rod and Avet MX-J with drag set at 5#. You can feel a keeper 'butt on that, and enjoy a bit of fight. Next season's rig will be on a SuperSeeker, SSCLB804, with an Avet SX - and still no more than 15# line.

Of course, if you use Rex Crab Boil instead, you won't have to put all the extra junk in with the bugs to absorb the skunky flavors. It's harder to find than it used to be, but it's still the best of the ready-made crab and shrimp boils. Some of my earliest happy memories were as a child in New Orleans sitting on the side porch steps with a big paper bag full of fresh boiled crawdads. Boiled in Rex, naturally.

  I haven't tried their services, but Reelmeister offers a conversion of those AB Ambassadeurs into usable C3's: http://www.reelmeister.com/page5.html

  I don't have any 2500's other than a 2500C, very different bird, but I think you're correct on the size differences. A 1750 uses spool #9164, a 2650 uses #9166, and 2000, 2050, 2500, and 2600 all use #9165. The other difference, of course, is that the 1750's don't have a plastic spacer on the left side like the others do. My smallest ones are buried around here somewhere, but I still like to take a couple of 2650's and some 5-1/2 foot fiberglass rods and have some fun with the local Shimano punks. On really twisted days I'll take a 4-foot bamboo casting rod and a Pflueger Summit to the lake and really gross them out. [Disclaimer: I own four Shimano spinning reels, but have never considered their casting models. Fair enough? I'm not a prospect for proselytizing. There's a couple of Quantums in the mix (pretty mediocre for the price, in my opinion), but generally speaking for me it's either Ambassadeur or Avet unless I'm fly-fishing.