Love at First Sight
Rachel and I had been casually looking at boats online for about a year and a half with the idea that maybe, one day we would be able to buy a boat and go cruising. You know when we retired or something…. We thought that we would take a year off from work and backpack from the Yucatan Peninsula all the way down to Argentina. The plan was to save up fifteen thousand dollars each and see how long we could make it last while backpacking through Central and South America. Just as we were making plans, Rachel's job took off . We decided to stick around a little while longer so Rachel could take advantage of the influx of work. I started spending more time looking at boats. In November 2013 I got a new job too, working for Dos Cuadras Offshore Resources (DCOR). After we started saving we saw the possibility of making our dream of buying a sailboat a reality, a lot sooner than we had originally planned. We lived simply, rented a fully furnished home so we didn't have to purchase any furniture or decorations, and saved every penny in hopes or making our dream come true. Rachel and I made a list of what we wanted in a boat. Offshore capabilities, easily short handed, ample storage, affordable!!!! To be honest, the perfect boat for us was one that made cruising feel like home and not camping. We thought we had found our dream boat… A 50 ft Tayana built in the Ta Yang boat yard. She was a real fixer upper and wasn't outfitted with anything needed for blue water cruising, but she did meet the number one criteria of being affordable. She had wide open decks, beautiful teak interior, room to start a family or have friends and family visit. She was beautiful! Even though it was affordable, it would have taken so much time and way too much money to get her ready to sail around the world. Too be honest, looking back she was way more boat than what we realistically need, and way more work than we wanted to put in. When Rachel and I first started looking at boats, we had come across a few Tayanas but were turned off by the teak decks. Teak made no sense to me, it just means work, leaks, and money, (it's cruel and twisted that we now have a boat with teak). Other than that, they seemed like very well build boats, with lots of storage. The 37 foot Tayanas have an amazing reputation and have been sailing the world for over forty years. Most of the 42 ft Tayanas we came across we liked, but they had center cockpits and didn't have the layout we were looking for. Right around the same time, Rachel met Melissa at Spencer Macenziez's (the local fish taco bar). Melissa and her husband Ryan, had moved out to California from Utah after finding their dream boat, Sea Wolf, a Tayana 37'. They were finishing outfitting their boat before sailing down to Mexico and across the South Pacific. Turns out we had found our new best friends. I wish we would have only met them sooner or they could have stayed in Ventura longer. Rachel had Melissa over for dinner the night they met and we ended up hanging out with her and Ryan almost every day until they departed for Mexico. Once they departed for Cabo San Lucas, Mexico we decided to visit them along the way. We drove down to Ensenada to hang out with them for a week while their boat was on the hard and getting the bottom repainted. We played at the beach, ate way too many tacos, spent six hours getting pruney in remote hot springs, spotted a zonkey and played with a jaguar cub.
As fate would have it, the Swans invited us to come down for another visit in Cabo before they headed of to the Maquesas. Up until then we had not looked at boats down Mexico or anywhere else in the world. I guess a purchase that big in a foreign country and all the paperwork that comes with it scared us a bit. While we were in Cabo I searched to see if there were any boats in the surrounding area that met our criteria. Sure enough, we found a couple boats online that caught our eye and one in praticullar up in La Paz. After spending a couple days having fun in the sun, we rented a car and drove up to La Paz. We had been emailing back and forth with the broker and owner of a 1984 Tayana Vancouver 42 named Entre Nous (which means 'Between Us' in French). It looked great in the pictures but we had been deceived before, so we didn't have our hopes up. We mostly wanted to see it to get an idea of the lay out.
Then we saw her... 'She kicked off her shoes and climbed aboard making her way to the bow, I followed. Rachel looked up and down the mast, quickly navigated the deck aft and disappeared bellow. I stayed on the deck taking in the sloped teak decks and stay sail boom, trying hard to identify any flaws or pitfalls. I was making my way to the mast, looking at the oversized rigging when she surfaced again. "Josh! Josh! Come down and look, she is beautiful. Come and see she's perfect." After being on her for less than a hour, I could see it in Rachel's eyes and feel it in my heart. This was a boat I could love!!!! ' -----from our journal, March 15, 2014.
Boat shopping is a funny thing... I think that it is starts with the mind, and finishes with the heart. We looked at a lot of boats that seemed like good and sound choices, but for some reason this one was different. We had a really good feeling about this boat. Except for the teak decks... We were so rushed that day, we expected to see just another boat that would give us a better idea of what we wanted and didn't want. We hadn't planned on it being THE BOAT! We had so many questions and not enough time. We got so wrapped up in surveying the boat and asking the owner questions that we almost missed our flight home.
The whole car ride to the airport the four of us discussed our options. We went over all the boat's pros and cons, and the cost. We really just wanted to buy the boat then and there, sail it around to Cabo for a bit and leave with the Swans to see the world. But it wasn't our time, not yet... On the flight home Rachel and I had a serious talk. I wanted to give her a out. One last chance to say this wasn't her dream, or that she wasn't ready to commit to this yet. It is a huge commitment, for two newly weds that have been saving every penny they could, to pull the trigger and finally make the purchase. All I know is I am blessed. Rachel gave me that look like, "Are you kidding me?" She was in!!! God gave me a wife that would let me play pirate for the foreseeable future!!!!!!!
As soon as our plane landed at LAX we emailed the broker our offer!
