18°48′00″N 64°30′00″W

I think I left you guys as we were just about to leave fort Lauderdale and head to the Caribbean. So much has happened since then so its probably time for a full update…..

We flew to Saint Martin and met up with a really good friend of mine Tom and his girlfriend Coline. These two live on the French side of this crazy little Caribbean Island (half French and half Dutch) in a cute little house with an awesome cat. Tom works as a captain on catamarans and Coline works diving instructing, life guarding and hostessing on the yachts. They have been amazing and let me store some of my gear with them; we were slowing loosing our sense of humour about flying around with 1 paddleboard and 1 surf board + windsurfing and spearfishing gear (haha Dads face each time we were trying to check in was priceless ;)). Anyway, in the short time we were there we did some windsurfing, surfing and island exploring, even managed to fit in viewing a boat.

We had flights booked for the British Virgin Islands (BVI’s) as there were a good concentration of potential yachts that we wanted to look at, including a couple favourites. We were met early on by the broker that we had arranged to work with Todd Duff from BVI yacht sales who has been (and still is) absolutely fantastic. Such a nice guy and so interesting, he has been living on a yacht for the last 30 years and has spent heaps of time in the Pacific so we had a lot to talk about. We saw a whole lot of yachts with him in a short time and then made the decision to put an offer in on one (a Jeanneau 43 DS) called ‘Sold the Farm’. What a process this has been!

I wish I could tell you that buying a yacht is easy, but this has been a crazy insane rollercoaster of a week! I’ll try and give you a brief idea of the process….. So once the offer was on the table we then needed to negotiate about the price. We had offered a fair bit below the price so we then had to do some to and fro’ing. This all took a fair bit of time. Luckily in the mean time I made some new friends who work on luxury charter catamarans and got to hang out with them for a bit. This was great fun! We had drinks on board these insane yachts and even ended up aboard another luxury cat in the middle of the night which was taking on water and was sinking! Rescuing the yacht after a few wines and rums was interesting to say the least haha! I also managed to squeeze in a days surfing with these guys and caught some epic waves, so much fun. Including a right hander which just went on forever! Bottom turns and top turns galore (including a lot of big swishing noises from me as I went haha).
Then back to the yacht buying…… back and forth and back and forth we went and then finally came to an agreement subject to survey. But in this case due to the owner having planned a casual charter during this sale time we ended up having to agree that we would make a decision about buying the boat on the SAMEDAY as the survey (normally you would have 2 days to get the full results of the survey then have some time). We were keen to get on with it and the alternative left us waiting around and paying for the hotel for 10 days. So we accepted that it was likely to be a super stressful day and just go for it.

So next step the survey. To do the survey the yacht has to be taken out of the water and also taken on a sea trial. We also needed to have the Broker, the surveyor, the seller, the yacht, the lift and yard (for the boat), the marina, the transport to and from, a workshop on hand to give us quick quotes and the weather all organised for this exact day that had been agreed. Needless to say this was a nightmare! But we got there in the end and the day of the survey was looming and needless to say my stomach was in knots.

So survey day! The weather was not playing ball and because there was an issue with one of the lifts close by we had been forced to re arrange to have the boat lifted out on another island. This then lead to a white knuckle ride in a small speedboat going full speed for an hour and a bit in rough seas and 20knts + (Mum decided to let just me and Dad go haha). On arrival torrential rain starts and strong winds gust through just as we are trying to get the boat to the lift. This did not go well. But after some yelling by pretty much everyone we got the boat into the slings and she was hauled out. Bill Baily (our amazing surveyor) was fantastic and went through the boat with a fine comb and due to the circumstances I followed him around with my note book and wrote down everything (ending up squeezed in the shower with him looking at a leaking holding tank was not a highlight haha) . All of this took us to about 4pm with the ferry leaving at 5.30pm and us having to hear Bills shortened report and then make a decision and negotiate all before it left.

So we had our big important person discussions about the boat, with some really serious things coming out of it. For example, the mast step needs re doing as it is depressed – this would involve taking the mast and all the rigging off the boat – not a small job. And there were others. So I was mid way through internal freak out as these three 60+ year old men were talking about lots of things I was still trying to understand and I was trying to make a decision on the biggest financial commitment of my life when I look down and a small boy (perhaps 5 years old) had placed a mostly dead lizard on my arm and then asked me if I thought it was sleeping…………! After trying to explain that we are in the middle of something quite important he proceeds to walk around the railings of the restaurant while we continue our discussions hoping that he isn’t going to fall off.

Crunch time approached and Dad, the broker and the surveyor looked at me to name a price for this boat that if I am totally honest had let us down a bit. So I agreed on a much lower figure and it was presented to the seller. This was rejected and a counter offer was made…..the ferry at this point was also leaving…….then our last offer was made (or in Africa we would call it our ‘walk away, last last, student, rainy day price). And he agreed.

So now we are in the process of finalising on a good boat that will be a great boat when we are finished (with a lot of hard work)……. so not there yet but fingers crossed this process will all be over soon…………