Purchasing the boat

Wow, what a week it was. We viewed the two boats and decided on her, my husband and I pretty much had our mind made up after we sat in her and visited with the owner.

We talked all night about what we liked and did not like, then we went and saw her again the next day. It was business this time, we spoke to a surveyor and started talking money. The owner was pretty set on his price 26,500, he did go down to 25,000.  We shook on the price and pending the survey, then left this was on Saturday.

My husband and I got into a big argument on Sunday, he drove home to get the money and more stuff.  On Monday, we called and scheduled for marinas, survey, and haul out for Thursday, told owner we would need boat at marina by Wednesday.  My husband and the owner planned to motor the boat to marina Wednesday morning, it would take 3 hours.

Finding the marina was quite easy. Once my husband got back on Monday from a drive to home and back, we decided to plan out the week. By this time, we had moved passed our argument (not sure what we were arguing for, just nervous I guess) and set Tuesday to find a marina. Luckily, we had traveled quite a bit around the sound to know what each area looked like. We visited several marinas on Tuesday and decided on the marina nearest the haul out, a marina we had been to before, which had lots of amenities. The other marinas were too far, or not so nice, and very industrial. We wanted a marina that could offer a family options while living aboard. We know that this will be a temporary living arrangement, like our spring board to get us ready, but we want it to be tolerable.

Wednesday the owner and my husband took off in the boat, those lucky dogs. Me and our son drove to the marina and met them, we fell more in love with this boat. We were so excited to see them pulling into the marina, and could not wait to get this stuff over and sail away.

Thursday the surveyors inspected her and had her hauled out. My husband negotiated some more with owner because there are some issues, he dropped 1,000 off the price. We sat inside her for a couple hours after the survey contemplating the work needed, the size, the price, and our plans. My husband called the owner and set a time to exchange money for the boat on Friday, and see if he could help us get her in our new slip.

Friday we met the owner, exchanged the money and he easily slipped the boat into our new slip. Later that day, we learned our boat was too big for the slip and that we needed to move it the next day. Our novice experience of moving boats in tight areas had us somewhat worried. We cleaned a bunch of stuff out of the boat that night, when we left the marina to head back to our hotel, we noticed how peaceful the marina was. Looked up and saw a million stars, walked around and heard wildlife, we thought to ourselves this is nice.

Saturday morning our new marina community was very welcoming. We got offers to help jump the engine. My husband started moving the boat while our son and I ate a snack, the fellow boater neighbors helped him tie the boat into the new slip. They even gave our son a new life jacket, we had left home without one, and the one he was wearing was too big.

We had to leave and come home to finish downsizing. And now we cannot wait to go back!

The new boat

Yes, we purchased the boat on our last trip. Thank goodness. We were so ready. And we got it from craiglist, our favorite medium for buying and selling.

She is a beauty, a Westsail 32, 41.2' over all with huge bow-spirit and stern.

She will need a new name with a nice ceremony. She needs some maintenance, she's leaky all over and musty below. She's gonna take a lot of time and cash, but in the end I believe she will be worth it. She'll take us to places we never thought we could go to, and it will be possible with her.

Head, to compost or not to compost?

We are looking into this, they are expensive, but quite possibly the best thing since sliced bread.

The thought of urine and feces in a tank on your boat grosses me out. And having to repair it grosses me out even more. However, the thought of feces in a medium like moss doesn't gross me out as much, probably, because as a girl who has camped in primitive areas I know how to use the potty outdoors.

In the interest of time and necessity, we have just ordered our composting head and will install it on our new boat soon, yes the boat we just purchased a few days ago. There are some dilemmas with the head on our new boat, the biggest being that there is no holding tank and the marina we have placed it in requires just that, a holding tank. The composting head would operate as a holding tank, it has one for urine and one for feces.

I've never really operated a head, so I'm about to learn. And neither of us have used a composting head. We've watched the video on how to install it and how it operates, and read some reviews online. This is something completely new we are getting ready to explore, potty on a boat. It is pretty important to know how to do this (especially when children are young - getting them out of diapers is a huge hurdle), and it is the first official thing we have bought for our new boat.

Its gonna be interesting, we'll have to teach the children how to use the potty in a different way, pee with valve closed and poop with valve open.

More boats, to live in a trailer or not live in a trailer

Next round of boats, we have a smaller list to see this next visit.  We have 2 in particular that we like, Ohlson 38 and Westsail 32.  They are very different boats, so it will be interesting to see how they look inside and out. And both are in our price range, with time/work/money we expect to get it running in good shape.

Traveling to see boats is costing us a lot of money.  Each time we head to the coast we have to stay in a hotel, at 70-80$ per night, this adds up.  Eating out cost more money, and stomach pains.  Driving to various marinas adds more money. Occasional sight seeing adds more to the money spending. We are feeling the uneasiness of spending money after we have spent the last year saving for our adventure.  Soon the plans and dreams of this adventure will be reality and we cannot wait.

A trailer, or camper, to get us from the house to boat is a thought. Then there is the task of finding a trailer that is decent, licensed, and the gas to move it about. We envision once we are on the boat then we would have to sell it and that could take up some time and money.  I think we decided not to do a trailer/camper as a transition, just too much hassle!