It's official... we bought a boat!

Well after very little shopping we now own a 42ft Nordic Tug.  I think we only saw 3 boats if you don't count all the new ones we got on at the boat show?  Anyway this one seemed to meet our requirements of being mostly turn key, local, with the space and fuel economy we wanted.  As a bonus it came with a dingy & outboard. Hopefully the outboard runs and the dingy holds air?  We never tested those.  The brand seems to have a pretty good following so hopefully it will be easy to sell when we get back.  Now we need to figure out if we are going to sell our sail boat or store it for the year we are gone?  Oh well we don't have to decide that today.  

On June 30th Max and I drove up to Port Huron to officially close on the boat.  This was his first time seeing it and he seemed happy with our choice and what his accommodations will be for the next year.  Oddly enough Annabelle still had not seen it and did not seem too interested.  Guess she is still trying to ignore this adventure?

Right as I signed the last bit of paper work one of the dock kids knocked on the boat telling us we needed to move it.  I explained I just bought the boat and did not have a home for it yet.  Even though the boat had been sitting in this same slip since early April it seemed they wanted it out of there for the holiday weekend.  After a little begging they gave me 4 days to find a different home for it but I had to move it that day.  Ugh.. I'll admit I was intimidated to drive this thing.  Not to mention I was going to have to get a bridge to open for me and deal with current in the river on my first day without my wifes expert line handling abilities.  Lesson one... No one can hear me when the engine is running and I'm trying to drive from the pilot house.  We are going to need some head sets or something to communicate as I can't see the stern on this thing and it drives nothing like a sail boat.  Despite being a bit nurvous Max and I figured out how to get it untied and out of the dock on our own.  The dock workers meet us at the wall on the other side of the bridge where they were putting us.  On the second attempt to slide it in what seemed like a pretty big spot between two boats I managed to get the boat along the wall and tied up.  Lesson 2:  This boat does not turn very well and only backs to starboard.  I'm going to need to find a buoy somewhere and practice maneuvering a bit.

Unfortunately once we got the boat parked Max and I had to head right back home as he had sailing practice, it was our turn to cook for 90 some hungry sailors, and we still needed to get things packed for our trip to Mackinac Island the next day.  No time to enjoy her quite yet.

Its official.. My leave of absence has started!

My leave of absence from work was approved and as of June 18th I'm a free man without a pay check.  This will be my first time in 32 years that I have not had a job of some sort.  I'm really looking at this time period as a trial retirement to see how we do without the jobs that have been the center of our lives the past 25 years and can we actually stay on the fairly conservative budget we planned.  I've been a big fan of the FIRE movement over recent years and we have done a pretty good job saving and planning for the future but its a scary thing to go from saving to spending mode. 

We now have 15 months to get a boat, complete the Great Loop, and do anything else we can think of that might be fun before I have to go back to work.

Mechanical Inspection - Why was it so hard

 I'm a bit behind but let's just say this little act caused a lot of drama.  All was good after our survey.  Strangely enough the sellers broker offered to negotiate on price after the survey and after a little back and fourth we agreed on a price that was within a few thousand of what I had hoped to buy the boat for.  My plan was to wait for all of the inspections to be completed before opening up the negations but who am I to complain when someone offers to lower the price which might have given me another chance to beat them down should something come of the next inspection.  Anyway next up was the mechanical inspection.  The mechanic I had called about 3-4 weeks prior decided he was too busy and canceled.  This sent the sellers broker into a tissy.  To this point we still had been working on good faith but when I told him we were not closing until the mechanical inspection was done he decided to create a lot of drama.  From what I can tell all the childish nonsense came directly from him and not his buyers that he was representing.  It was weird.  Anyway long story short we gave him a 10% deposit on the boat and now had 20 days to get the inspection or the boat would be back on the market.  Lucky we were able to get Cummins to come inspect both engines (generator & main engine) within 14 days of calling them.  They were going to cost me about 3x more then the local mechanic but after talking with several other diesel mechanics all told me it was worth the money and the right thing to do with an engine that had over 6000hrs on it.

The mechanic showed up, we took the boat out ran it at various speeds for a bit, asked a number of questions.  Overall everything looked good from his perspective.  Turned out the low oil pressure light was coming on because the idle was not set high enough and he adjusted it when we got in.  It appeared the person maintaining the boat had changed the oil early in the spring when we looked at the boat the first time so I did not have much hope for a oil analysis.  I suspect the same guy had changed the oil again prior to this inspection but insisted it just ran really clean.  The tech took an oil sample anyway and surprise surprise it came back clean.  The engine sounds good, starts easy, and neither the tech or I noticed any leaking so I decided to take the risk add the cost of an engine rebuild to the emergency kitty and move on with the sale.  Bottom line we really didn't have much choice at this point.  There were not many other boats for sale in our area that were close to what we were looking for and I think the guy maintaining the boat just really wanted it to show at its best.  Hopefully this is true & everything will run fine for us!