We found the boat, the cogs are in motion. We just need time and energy to make all of the machinery work. It’s a arduous, thankless task, but on the bright side, we are staying in a beautiful house in Naples. My childhood neighbors serendipitously have a house here that they graciously offered to us while we’re boat hunting. Such nonchalant generosity is rare and humbling. We’ve been enjoying the gems of an easy, if bureaucratic life in Naples.
Waiting around on the paper chase of buying a boat requires patience. Documents are slow to be exchanged and fruitless insurance leads wind up dragging you down the rabbit hole before terminating. Between daily trips to the ‘office’ (library, see below) we enjoy our time in Naples. Citrus grows freely in the trees, fat and juicy from the daily thunderstorms that pummel down rain at some point every day. We plan, prep, fix, build, research, call, read. We make lunch, and do it again. And sometimes we even swim in the pool. Hard times kiddy.
We are getting our first taste of living off the connection grid. The Naples house doesn’t have internet, so when we need to be connected, which is daily with all this paper chase, we load up in Big Red and bounce on down to the Naples Public Library, conveniently located a few miles from us. It’s like going to the office, icy-cold air conditioning and strange ‘regulars’. We sure do get a lot of research done though.
Back at the ranch we generally make the phone calls that we couldn’t in the ‘Shhhhh! Keep your voices down, aside from all the crazy old people who feel free to talk really friggin’ loud because their hearing is going’. Sorry. Library. Then we get a little dinner going.
We usually unwind with some light reading, research, conjecture, notes, page flipping, text referencing, and highlighting. Have to get used to being off the grid. Our newest, fanciest equipment is an iPad mini with Navionics on it. The 4G iPad version that we got also has a GPS chip in it, so you don’t actually need cell signal, only clear skies. That’s what everyone says anyway! The Navionics is quite frankly magic. It loads maps of the entire Caribbean, Central and South America, and parts of the US. You can zoom down to see minute detail. We’ll check it out on the real water.
Let’s face it. We’ve been blessed with easy sailing so far and it should be expected that eventually (now) we’re getting some chop. It’s so beautiful in this little house with the canal right in the back yard, but we’re itching to get on our boat and make headway. It may be slow and frustrating at times. But one things for sure… even if it feels like w’ere on hold, we’re on our way in Naples.
After our 1 AM arrival to Naples, we still intended to make the boat scouting appointments that we had planned with our broker and some private listings the following day. All of the appointments were two hours away in Fort Lauderdale, so we were up at six o’clock and on the road again. Man we were getting sick of driving!
Made it to our appointment on time and met Steve Moore from the Catamaran Company who we had met on our previous mission to Florida. He introduced us to Kenan and his wife Julie, two young Brits who were selling their Lagoon 380 after a year sabbatical in the Bahamas. The boat was in beautiful shape for its age, and was very well equipped. Kenan is a professional captain on massive private yachts (220 feet massive), as well as a pilot. He knew the boat extremely well and kept good care of her. After a run through of the boat and some discussion of possible timeline we walked away with a distinct like of the boat and a good feeling about the owners.
Our second, third, and fourth boats of the day went by in a blur. I don’t think we even got a picture of any of them! Our heads were still in the clouds about the Lagoon and nothing held a candle to it. We didn’t even discuss it much between us. We just drove back to the Catamaran Company, located in a floating office in a marina, and asked Steve to help us make an offer.
It started pouring rain. The boat was listed outside of our comfortable price range. We decided to make an offer that we could afford, and make an itinerary for the hand over of the boat that would be attractive to the sellers. They were trying to fly back to the U.K. in mid-October, and were really hoping to move the boat before then. We crossed our fingers that giving them the option of a quick turn-around could make up for our lower offer.
With Steve’s help we filled in and sent a formal offer on the boat outlining purchase price, conditions, and dates for survey/sea trial, acceptance of vessel, and closing. We hurried a transfer to Cat. Co’s escrow account through some help with Miranda’s friends at her Wisconsin bank, and then sent the offer over to Kenan’s selling broker. Then we waited.
And we waited.
And it felt like forever.
In fact, it was only fifteen minutes, but I felt like the gun was going to go off for the cross country state meet, or I was going to sit a six hour quantum physic exam. This rates right up there in the stress. If I was prone to heart disease, I’d likely be dead.
And then Steve waltzes up the steps, sits and says casually, “Well, they accepted your offer.” I thought we’d fall out of our chairs but it was so nonchalant that I just stared at him. We signed some papers and made a few phone calls to set up sea trials and survey for the very next day.
It was late in the day and we were to be back at the boat at 8:30 the following morning. Instead of driving two hours back to Naples, then retracing our steps the following day in the wee hours of the morning we opted to get a hotel in Fort Lauderdale. After a good night’s sleep we were back on the boat early and really, really excited.
Kenan took us to the haul out, all the while making chit-chat in that British accent that will always make American ladies swoon. We navigated the busy waterways of Fort Lauderdale, avoiding towed yachts, ducking bridges, and jockeying in the respectable current. It was all very exciting.
At the shipyard we docked carefully and waited for the lift, a massive motorized contraption that looked like it had been built out of Legos by some industrious ten-year-old. The workers guided thick straps under the hulls and positioned them carefully to not sit on the keels, rudders, or sail drives.
With the grumble of a motor the boat was lifted slowly from the water, her undersides gleaming. The motorized lift rolled forward, for a second leaving the boat behind before it swung slightly and equalized in its motion.
Once over firm ground the boat was lowered slightly and we gathered around it. Usually things look bigger underwater, like fish or skinny dippers, but this definitely looked much bigger out of the water. I wondered what I was doing.
The rain began to fall, fat and slow, and we all took shelter under the catamaran’s bridge deck. I wondered what people with monohulls did in this situation. Our surveyer Jon, who specialized in catamarans and knew the Lagoon 380 especially well, filled us in on his assessment of the boat so far. We were happy to hear positive news all around.
The boat was put back in the water. I think I heard her audibly sigh. It’s unnatural for a vessel to be hanging from her hulls. We motored out into the Atlantic and put up sails. The wind was slight so we didn’t sail long, but enough to get the feel of the boat, work the sails, and give the surveyor a chance to check them.
On the way back in the sky opened up again on us. I took the helm by request and let the others take shelter in the saloon. Without rain gear my shirt was quickly soaked. We waited twenty minutes for a bridge in the rain, working the twin diesels to keep us close enough to the bridge to shelter from lightning, but far enough to avoid collision.
When we got back to dock I was soaked and chilly, but very much excited. We sat in the saloon and got the rundown from the surveyor. All in good, working shape, a few things that need to be addressed, but nothing major. Green light. We signed the Acceptance of Vessel.
We stayed for an hour or so talking to Julie and Kenan about the boat and each others’ lives. They are a really interesting couple, extremely personable and open and we’re so happy to be accepting the boat from them and carrying on her adventure. Miranda and I drove back to Naples with our heads spinning. We now are left with the task of getting all the paperwork settled and wire transfers lined up. If all goes well, we close in early October and move aboard then. Oh, and one more thing- No name set in stone so far… hmmm…
Thursday. We were hoping to meet up with a broker we had already talked to when we were still in Chile, but he’s been down in the Carib selling a boat and we’ve been playing phone and email tag. So, plan B. In a quick perusal of Yachtworld and Sailboatlistings we found three boats of interest with the Multihull Company brokerage. Gave Alexis de Baucaud, their senior broker, a buzz. He too was down in the islands, but set us up to check out the boats on our own! Armed with some addresses and key-codes we jumped into the car, again, for a treasure hunt. There’s always a mast at the end of the rainbow. All week we’ve been driving up to some unassuming house, not sure if there’s any water nearby, and lo and behold, a mast sticking up from behind the low, one story house.
Our first boat of the day, a 2001 Fortuna Island Spirit 37’ was an immediate hit. Great size, nice and beamy. Felt solid and stable. Lovely open cockpit and excellent access to uncluttered decks, solid bimini and superstructure, well outfitted, and good vis from the helm. Nice open salon and galley up. She had a few knicks in her decks, but then again, so do I. We scampered about happily, feeling a little sneaky for being there on our own. Peered in cupboards, through hatches, and under mattresses. It immediately went to the top of the list.
Our next stop, luckily only a few minutes away was a Maxim Yachts, Voyage 380. Again, snuck behind someone’s house, slipped through a fence on the side, and finagled our way into the boat via a lock box. I think the James Bond music was playing the entire time. The Admiral was stout and strong. She would’ve been a favorite had we not seen the Island Spirit previously. The salon layout was much more crunched and the overall space on the boat was inefficiently distributed compared to similar boats. Would do the trick without a problem through, I’m sure.
Our last stop of the day was to see a 2001 Lagoon 380. Dariousz, a Polish-French gentleman was selling it right after seven years of cruising it from the Med with his wife and young daughter. He took great care, pride, and records of his boat, all of which he showed us with eagerness. The boat was immaculate, almost perfectly loaded, and at a great price. The only problem is that the great price is still at the upper limit of our funds.
We toured the boat with Dariousz, then sat and had a beer with him in the cockpit, chatting about the boat, international living, and futból. He had Brazilian beer, Brahma, in honor of the World Cup that was playing in the salon. He told us the boat was pretty much sold to someone in Boston who didn’t even come down to see it, but still wanted to haggle over the price. He was adamant that he set the price fairly, and that anyone who came down to see her would agree and not insist on haggling per industry standard.
Of course we loved the boat immediately. He asked us if we had liquid capital, which we do, and he started discussing selling it to us instead. I think he partially didn’t like the current buyers as much as us, and partially thought that we could move the boat faster.
Called Alexis when we left as a rumbling thunderstorm came in and started spattering the mango trees around the boat. He gave us the scoop on how we could potentially throw a bid coup. We took notes, sort of stunned that this might even be a possibility, our brains churning over the logistics and gravity of the situation at hand. We went out for dinner and over an hour or so weighed the pros and cons of the deal. Miranda was enamored with the boat’s immaculate condition and sturdy feel; I played devil’s advocate and discussed the price being higher than we had originally been planning to spend. We hemmed and hawed. We looked at our finances, and attacked the situation from all different angles.
