It's taken forever but on the 8th of Feb the deal for the sale of our coffee business will be finalized and we're free to start out boat hunt.
It has a strange, unreal feeling about it. It's taken so much work to get to this point.
I haven't posted here for a month. I didn't have anything new to say and while I'm not superstitious, I sure didn't want to take the chance of jinxing the sale!
Now we can seriously look forward to trading some of this summer heat for the northern hemisphere's freeze. Having just sold a coffee business we'll be happily paying for a coffee to keep warm.
The boat market has changed a lot in the time we've been de-cluttering. When we started most of the boats we're interested in were in the USA/Caribbean and Mexico. Now there are more potential bargains in Europe. I've been talking to brokers there and I'm convinced that the European economies are hurting as much as the USA, maybe more.
Our first destination will be Greece. We will be in Athens by the middle of Feb and catch a ferry to the island of Leros where we'll be taking a good look at this one.
Then we're on to Spain to look at a few different but also suitable boats, followed by one in Holland.
The dutch boat may be too big, but she's a thoroughbred so we do have to check her too.
After that we're off to Florida where there is probably the biggest concentration of boats. We've got the impression that tramping some of the big marinas there could unearth potential bargains.
From there we will most likely head over to Washington state in the Pacific North West. We've been in discussion with the owner of a sister ship to the one in Holland. It would be a private sale and there is quite a story to this one, which we may share one day. Puget Sound would be an interesting place to start our sailing life.
In the mean time there is so much to get through before we leave. Not only is there a massive task in handing over the coffee business, but we've got to sort out visas, banking arrangements, mobile phone and internet. It would be pointless staying with our current carrier because global roaming would be shockingly expensive. Prepaid sim cards and Skype will be our main communication until we find our boat and set up something permanent.
And then there is more de-cluttering.
Sandy's little Toyota Echo went in a flash even though it's 13 years old. She didn't even advertise it... just mentioned it on Facebook and it was gone in a day.
The 'Bison', our much loved BMW R1200 C is more of a collectors item. The rainy weather hasn't been conducive to dreams of thundering down the highway either. Robin has been using it for the last 6 months and I'm starting to suspect he has some control of the weather!
I guess that's it for now. Let the adventure begin!