Getting Ready

Once all the paperwork was completed in February we started to organize our things and thinking ahead to moving aboard. Jane made a few things to personalize Kinvara II.

A quilt made from t-shirts collected in the Bahamas trips 2010 and 2012

Cushions made from a wedding favor

Replacement seats and backs for 4 director chairs

At the beginning of March we traveled to St Augustine, FL to meet Ginny and Steve....the former owners of our boat. We discovered their boat name, "Blue Charm," was referring to a salmon fishing lure!  It's also coincidental that the first boat we were most interested in was registered in Cushing, Maine.  The boat we finally purchased is also registered in Cushing Maine.

We took a break from packing with a trip north. Jane spent a week in Shirley, MA to help her brother after surgery and Peter arrived a week later. We took another trip to Rockland, ME to see our new boat then spent Easter with our kids......and Sophia, of course! We took a side trip to Defender Marine to purchase our dinghy and outboard engine during their spring sale.

Easter fun!

She loves her dress.

Returning to Florida meant serious packing and preparing for cruising. Our garage is the staging point for boxes and we have reserved a small u-haul trailer rental.

2016 A New Year and a New Boat

In October of 2015, while visiting Rhode Island for our anniversary, we sat in a cafe in Wickford watching the water. The discussion turned to boats, boating, and regrets we had sold our sailboat, Kinvara, too soon. We missed the cruising life so a search began for a new (to us) boat but this time we were looking for a trawler. The search took us to Rhode Island, Florida, and Maine. After 3 months searching and one offer that fell through we found a match for us in Rockland, Maine.

She is a 1997 Sabreline 43. While visiting our family for Christmas we spent a day in Rockland with our broker looking at her. She was stored in an indoor facility at Journey's End Marina.  We really liked what we saw. She was clean, in great shape, and we were definitely interested!

After some discussion at the local Dunkin Donuts with Tim, our broker, our offer was accepted.
And so it begins again!