Taking off Sept 2004 from Washington

Picture taken by our friends, Terry and Diane, at Port Angeles in the Straits of Juan de Fuca before we took off for our trip south by ourselves. Terry was being funny, but it was a serious event for us. This was September 2004. The rest is history.

Offer and Deal on the Boat

Well, we had a showing of Maggie Drum to a nice couple who flew over from Australia to see her. They flew in to Auckland, rented a car and stayed with some friends here in Whangarei. They inspected her on Sunday all day with me (the Australian broker was in Auckland for the annual boat show but did not have time to come up to Whangarei), liked what they saw and decided to go ahead with a sea trial and survey the next day.

Monday came with high tension. I have been totally stressed out getting the boat ready, trying to get my emotions together and still find time to sleep, which was not coming as I was too wound up. The night before the showing I woke up at 2:30am and could not go back to sleep. The next night before the survey was better but I only got about 5 hours sleep. Friends helped me clean and polish the decks all day on Friday and much of Saturday while I worked down below. That is on top of the months of effort to get MD ready. I should have worked harder before to save the final push at the end.

The sea trial went without a hitch. Getting underway after several months in a slip is always a bit nerve wracking anyway. You are worried that something won't work right or else you forget something like the last dock line on the stern tying you to the boat next to you, which is exactly what happened. I also forget how to drive so it very stressful even without buyers and a surveyor on board. It helped that the buyers were very, very nice knowledgeable sailors but the surveyor was taciturn and almost unfriendly. The big worry was that he would find something to condemn the boat and prevent the sale.

The buyers had been looking for a bigger boat to replace their 38-footer. They have two teenage boys and needed more room. Maggie Drum fit the bill evidently because after the showing they confirmed the survey for the next day. They were very picky so I felt more and more confident. The surveyor came on at 9am and did not leave until 6pm so he took lots of time to find problems. In the end, he had to put something down and did find some minor issues which did not put off the buyers. They did not ask me to fix anything as a condition of sale and we verbally agreed on the deal.

There is a contingency on a sale of some property of theirs in Australia so it is not a done deal. They can walk away essentially any time before April 10th when we expect to close with funds transferred then. They have a large non-refundable deposit on the sale of their property so it looks good but until then, Maggie Drum is still officially on the market.

I will stop most of my work on the boat now after having off-loaded most all our personal gear a much of the boat gear and put it in storage. The water line came up 5 inches! We had way too much stuff on this boat. Now it will have to be shipped back to the US.

We are not completely sure what we will be doing in the US. Cindy's position with her company goes until the end of the year if she wants it. I will visit with her for a while since we have been apart since early December. Then I will most likely go back to Anacortes and settle in there with visits back and forth to Denver and then Cindy will join me in Anacortes on a permanent basis. This is all subject to change. It is nice to have options, and very nice (for us) that real estate may be coming back down to a reality level so that we may be able to get our own house again.

And since the sale of the boat is not a done deal all of this may change. We will put MD up on the hard here and come back the next season if she doesn't sell now and we will continue cruising after a year off. So you will have to stay posted to find out "the rest of the story".

What's Up with Maggie Drum?

Well, you haven't heard much from us in the is space since the middle of November. The reason for that is we have been trying to come to grips with whether to sell the boat or keep going. The last several passages have been a bit of an ordeal for me (Joe) as I seem to get seasick and stay that way for the duration of the passages rather than just a couple of days as is the more usual pattern for most. It probably doesn't help that passages to and from New Zealand have a deserved reputation for being rough. Not always, but lots. Ours have been in the lots category.

Also, I have become a little bit disenchanted with throwing boat bucks in to the water in exotic places keeping the boat operational and up to snuff in third world countries. Many people seem to thrive on the challenge of it all but after the affair with the starter in Vanuatu, broken shrouds, broken this and that, it seems to have gotten to me.

It has been a very difficult decision. Witness to that is I refused to write about it, or even tell close friends and family about it, for several weeks. There was the distinct possibility that we could change our minds and keep going. And we still might. So how's that for being decisive? the problem is that there are many, many good reasons to stay out here and keep going. One major one is whether we can sell the boat in the midst of a global financial crisis that is affecting Australia and New Zealand as well as the US. Real estate is taking a beating right now here and people are not as optimistic for what basically is a non-essential major purchase and hobby.

Cindy is back in Denver working for her old employer of many years as a contractor or some major system upgrades. She has basically made the dream possible financially beyond our meager resources when we started out. Initially, back in 1999 when we started the dream, we mistakenly thought we had sufficient funds to go for several years without too much trouble. Wrong!! We don't seem to have the budgetary fortitude to get by with what we had so we have both worked off and on from the start. This also has been a strain on our lives as we live apart for several months of the year. However, we also live together 24/7 in a boat (think very small motor home size) with no "space" the rest of the time so may be that isn't so bad.

So, the boat is for sale. You can view the ad and photos on Yachtworld. com at: http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1831833/0. There are actually some good pics of the interior of Maggie Drum that you may not have seen before. MD is listed with an Australia broker at YachtDomain.com, the idea being that Oz has a bigger economy, more people and more money than NZ and it is close enough that people are willing to travel to see a boat over here, and may be even avoid paying duties on the boat for a bit if they don't need to take it to Oz in the short term. Other Ozzies have done that and keep the boat here in NZ and cruise the Pacific islands during the seasons.

Flash: just (right now) got a call from the broker saying that a couple of coming next week from Brisbane to have a look. They had actually written up an offer in January then rescinded it the next day before the ink was dry having concerns about the age of the boat and price vis a vis the prices in the US and Canada for the same model/age. Note: boats of this "age" are actually better built than the "clorox" bottle boats that are being mass produced today with extremely thin hulls and fittings to save cost and weight. The stress level just went up on me as I now have to rush to clean up the boat and finish a few last minute projects.

I also plan to publish on the blog in the very near future photos from our trip to Vanuatu and Fiji of last season. Vanuatu was a highlight of our travels so far. We absolutely loved it there. Not a perfect paradise but fun anyway as you would have gathered from our past blog entries.

I have hurt my back again so will just take some more medication and start cleaning up.

Cheers as they say here....