It occurred to me that I never mentioned that we sold the boat. Ended up selling it to the first people that looked at it, though it still managed to be about a four-month process. Initial offer was ridiculous. A month passed, another offer came along. The haggling I was fine with, but what we were haggling over made me absolutely insane. The buyer’s number one problem, and apparently something that they felt should make the boat worth like $40,000 less, was that the air-conditioning on the boat wouldn’t work at their dock in Singapore because of the differing power sources. 220v versus our 110v. I offered up like three solutions for the soon to be dock queen, all of which would give them an ice cold boat for a max of a couple thousand bucks, and a minimum of a couple hundred. Just wasting time to discuss air-conditioning drove me absolutely bonkers. I was determined not to sell the boat to them just because I found it so “un-sailorly.”

Yes, I’ve become the old, curmudgeonly, gray-beard of the high seas. I had no patience whatsoever for these newbies and their infatuation with air-conditioning. They had zero questions about the sails or the rigging, both of which were about due a replacement that would cost tens of thousands of dollars more than a 220v air-conditioner ever would.

Eventually a third offer came along, we settled on a price and they arranged the survey. The surveyor, as they always do, pointed out the most ridiculous things, and seemingly ignored all of the big ticket items. There was nothing wrong with the sails and rigging, but when a boat is exactly ten years old, you can bet that those are going to be things that need addressing very soon based on age alone. Now, maybe their surveyor warned them about this, maybe not, but it didn’t come up in survey (they shared that with us). I’m sure their insurance company will fill them in soon enough, assuming they aren’t “self-insurers” like us. Regardless, the surveyor determined that a bunch of nonsensical things needed to be replaced/repaired, they came up with a cost of a couple thousand bucks, and I didn’t even bother splitting it. Done. Where do I sign?

Somehow, getting paid took another three weeks, and over half a dozen wire transfers. At the same time we were receiving a wire from Mexico that had gone awry. Just a few hundred bucks refund on the house escrow, but I can’t imagine what our bank was thinking. In the space of a few weeks we’d had wires going to and fro with Mexico, Singapore, Malaysia, and the UK. If the US ever funded them, I would totally expect the IRS to call me around the end of April next year.

Hopefully I don’t sound too harsh here. I wish the new owners all the best. I’m sure if I’d spent the last ten or fifteen years watching sailing youtube I’d probably be convinced that air-conditioning was the most important item on a boat, too. I should be happy, after all, those same videos are probably what convinced them they needed a large catamaran in the first place.

Anyway, that’s done. Which is nice. One less thing.

Ali just reminded me I never mentioned a Cruising World article from a while back, either. Cruising World: Back to the Future

The only VW I’ve ever owned was our ’58 bus, but I love wandering the streets of San Miguel and finding the “vochos” sitting all over the place. Like little working art installations.

Really, though, any walk around San Miguel feels like an art walk.

I thought maybe there is a reason this body of water is named the Gulf of Mexico, I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

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