"It's kind of fun to do the impossible" - Walt Disney
We have bought a beautiful Lagoon 410, called Katzenellenbogen in St Maarten, Dutch Antilles.
This hasn't come about without many miles of travelling and searching every avenue to find what we're looking for. Stephen flew to the BVI, where he fell in love with a Norseman, we even named it. But it was not to be after the surveyor found too many problems that would take too long to repair. We did 2 trips to Fort Lauderdale, a trip to Sarasota, a 2 day trip to Pensacola, scoured every Internet site and contacted countless boat brokers. They were all either too old, too ugly or badly neglected.
We did have a lot of fun along the way though!
|
MICHAELA AND I ON KATZ IN FEB
We have
not seen Katz since February and we have bought her purely on recollection of
what we saw in Feb. This is not the option of choice because Stephen did fly
down to St Maarten to see her......but was turned away at customs for not
having a visa and had to fly straight out of there on the same plane he
arrived on! We did not need a visa for our trip in Feb so didn't check the
visa requirements this time, and BOOM, not allowed in!! You used be allowed
entry if you held an American B1/B2 visa, but this is no longer the case. He
was mad and arrived back after 14 hours of traveling, taking 4 flights with 2
huge bags of excess luggage and didn't actually go anywhere! A hard lesson
learned but now
we all have one year multiple entry visa's for the Netherlands
Antilles.Stephen was meant to be there to meet with the surveyor, do the sea
trials and do work on the boat for a week, but everything went ahead without
him. Katz was hauled out of the water, the anti-fouling has been done, all
the through hull fittings and sea cocks have been replaced and she has been
given a clean bill of
health.
|
Katz has
not come out of a charter fleet so she comes without extra's on board. We have
had to kit her out with everything from kitchenware to linen and towels, so
we've been shopping up a storm!! We've been spoilt for choice with amazing
stores such as IKEA, Bed Bath and Beyond, The Container Store and of course
Amazon. Parcels arrive at the Carcary's daily, it's become quite a joke
already. Our BIG problem is getting all this stuff to the boat. We have 11
suitcases, 2 bicycles, a surfboard, diving gear and fishing rods! There is not
much of a variety in the islands and anything that is good quality is
apparently hellishly expensive so we've decided to rather pay excess baggage
and take what we need.
We've
decided to moor at a marina in St Maarten for a month so we can do a bit of
work on the boat. It will be an easier transition, with Internet, warm showers
and electricity......small steps!
We're so
looking forward to starting this new chapter in our lives, it's taken 5 years
of dreaming and scheming and we're finally getting to the point where we can
step on to a boat and sail away. Exciting times ahead!
|
|
KATZ GETTING CLEANED UP. |
No comments:
Post a Comment