Boat buying is not as fun as we thought

It took eight months of serious searching to buy s/v Perry (and this doesn't count the three years of keeping abreast of the market, ready to buy if  the perfect deal had come along). We seriously considered boats as far away as Hong Kong, Turkey, Greece, and Croatia. We visited boats in Rhode Island, Florida, and the Bahamas. We would check yachtworld.com daily to see what was new on the market.  We would eagerly await for more photos for that seemingly perfect boat at a reasonable price only to discover that the original pictures were the product of some very creative cropping.

We had contracts on two different boats that fell through, one after an extensive and expensive survey. And we waited a lot.

On the plus side, we got to work in a visit with family in Massachusetts. Matt’s cousin Cheryl and her husband Pete are the buffest people we know. Seriously, they look like superheroes. And this is even though they have the most rockin' built-in pizza oven in their back yard.   I'd end up morbidly obese with unlimited access to pizza, so it's good we were only visiting  And their son is an amazing kid, whom the boys adore.

 

All the waiting also allowed us to build up the cruising kitty a bit (Mom- that's cruiser speak for making benjamins. Err, which is street speak for Scrooge McDuckin', which is.. look, never mind, just know that we'll have some extra funds so your grandchildren won't starve).

Speaking of Mom, we also got to spend a lot of quality time with my parents, who generously opened their home to us and made the transition infinitely easier. Although there were a few moments of friction (what?  moving back in with your folks?  friction?  who da thunk?), the boys loved being with their grandparents. Being away from family and friends will be one of the hardest part of all this.