Welcome to our blog. As we begin this record Elia and I are in the British Virgin Islands and planning on spending this fall/winter/ spring in the Caribbean on Orion, our 42’ Brewer 12.8 sailboat. Parts of our story will be told by Elia, parts by myself, so we are hoping to give a view from a couple of different perspectives. The thinking is not so much to share an ongoing travel itinerary, but more of a look at life in our world. Thanks for reading…

Malcolm

Where it all began:

Malcolm here.

The fall of 2015 was incredibly tough on Elia, and on me. She was dealing with being sick and we spent the fall in hospitals, in and out of surgeries, dealing with doctors. Much intensity. Many thoughts about life and the future and what do we want out of it all. What is important.

My take away was that I wanted to live now, not wait for the future when the money all made sense or when the stars aligned correctly. It turned out that even if you eat right, live clean, dance like nobody’s watching, and do a lot of yoga, you never really knew when the universe was going to come along and scramble all of those stars. Perhaps just when you thought it was all headed your way.

My boat addiction had been building for about a year, with many an evening spent online researching, dreaming. What type would be best? What could I afford? Where is the value? What is necessary, what are frills? All of this is the fun part of boat ownership that actually doesn’t cost money. Boats boats boats. On my mind. Not escaping. Grabbing hold. Such power a good strong addiction can exert over me. It had been a dream for many years. Boat porn on the inter web had it’s tentacles in me.

With Elia so sick there was some combination of desperately wanting to escape the pain of it. To go away with her and get healed together. I didn’t consider that she might not get well. No plan B entered my mind. It was going to happen. I was going to make it happen. Control over her sickness? Some control over my life where I could? I knew it was something that I wanted for me. I thought it was something that would be healing for her, and for us.

It was November. I figured perhaps a good time to get something for less than someone might take in the spring. We had looked at various possibilities while visiting my mom in Florida.  We saw a 42’ Bristol. Nice but tired and expensive. A 36’ Shannon. Way too small, tight, claustrophobic. Gulfstar? Possible but only rated so/so. Morgan? Cheap, but not built well. Many high end offerings that were shiny and new and oh so expensive. Wood, no. Steel, no. Fiberglass, yes. A center cockpit gave you an aft cabin. There was a door for separation. We both thought that we would want some space. 36’ seemed too small. 46’ too big. Sloop rig best. U shaped galley. Big fuel and water tanks. Shallow draft helpful. I had narrowed the search down to a few different options that were old enough to make them affordable, built rock solid, great reviews, etc. I kept coming back to 42’ Brewers.

There were 3 different Brewer 12.8’s that were available. One in Maine, one in Florida, and one in the Chesapeake Bay. The wheels started turning. They were all around $70,000-$80,000. Too much money. I sent out offers to each of them for $45,000, just to see if anything might happen. Florida said he would come down, but not nearly that much. Maine came back with $60,000. Chesapeake, $55,000. I dug deeper into the pictures, the descriptions, the history. Chesapeake was looking good. $47,500? His broker came back and said that he would go down to $50 but not any lower.Maine was down to $60 but the boat was sitting in his backyard, hadn’t been loved for awhile, seemed off. Based on my research $50 was the lowest I had ever seen for these, or similar, boats.

The way the boat buying game works is that you offer a price. If they accept it you sign a contract and then have a certain amount of time to go over it and make sure you know what you are getting. At any point in that process you can walk away. We agreed on $50k. It was time to actually go see this boat.

It was December. Winter was closing in. I flew to Cambridge Md.