We've done it again

We sold our boat, again!!

Signing papers at closing....

You may remember last time our boat sold in eight hours and we had to be off of it a week later. Well, this time we thought we had wised up a bit by waiting until the end of boating season, to list it. After all, it was mid-November and just a couple days before Thanksgiving, so we thought maybe, just maybe we could buy a little time and maybe we could have it in the 'for sale' column just a teensy bit longer, while we look for the next boat. Nope, that didn't happen! About two hours after we had listed Irie, we had it under contract....and no, we didn't list it too cheap..We're actually making money off of it! Albeit, not a whole lot, but it's always better to be on this end rather than to be losing money on the deal! The first couple that saw it, put in an offer...that we accepted. The crazy thing {well, one of the crazy things} is, is that our boat listing didn't even populate to the broker's website!! All my staging & photography skills used up and I didn't even get to see the final result.

Needless to say, the search is on to find our next boat!! I have stopped referring to it as our "forever boat" though and am just saying, "our next boat". Our pier at the marina is starting to look more like the 'Bricker Brokerage Pier'  with all our old boats lined up! Haha :)

In the meantime, we have become pros at being squatters!!! I wish I could say I was joking about that, but that's the downside to selling your boat in a couple of hours, during the holidays. Everyplace is either already booked or extremely over priced because of the time of year. The upside however, is the friends we have made at our marina have been outstanding to us in our current situation! We have had many, many offers for us to use their boats, come do laundry at their house or stay in their spare bedroom!! I've said it before, but it bears repeating, our marina friends & neighbors are without a doubt some of the best people and we are so incredibly grateful for their hospitality!!!

I'm hoping by the time I type up my next post, I'll have something to tell you (or show you) on our next boat, but until then, I'm keeping it hush hush on the blog, so nothing is jinxed! ;)

Here's hoping we aren't homeless for too much longer...until next time!

How did I know this wouldn't be our last boat

I knew this wouldn't be our last boat, I just thought we would live on this one longer than 4 months before hubs started talking about selling it, to buy bigger. All this talk started about a few weeks ago when our broker called Joe and told him about a boat he knew of that was about to come on the market and wanted to know if we were happy with our current boat or were we at all interested in moving up?

Don't get me wrong, we love, love, love our current boat and are very happy with it, but I think we bought her out of a bit of desperation. If I had to break it down, I would say that we bought our current boat based off of the following percentages:

     20% | we love Catalina sailboats

     35% | we got it for an excellent price

     40% | we couldn't find the boat we really wanted

      5%  | we were tired of being "homeless"

Then, if that wasn't enough, hubs had to change out the water pump on our boat the other day, and well, he wasn't too impressed with all the things that had to moved to get to the engine. 

See, with the boat we have now, the engine is under the companionway stairs. So first you remove the stairs, then you move the few galley items that I store back behind the steps, because I can't waste space and leave that empty, like I probably should. Then you remove the shell that covers the engine....and now you can get to the water pump or whatever else you need to get to. 

That's not too terrible, however the harder part comes when you need to access the back of the engine from the aft cabin. 

Now if you can, picture all the things that we already removed before that are taking up temporary residence in the salon area and add to that anything and everything that is being stored in the aft cabin (including the mattresses/cushions). All this just for you to get the the rest of the engine. If you look real close you can see hubs' hand in the top left corner. He's wedged in the aft cabin to reach the back of the engine while I'm in the main area of the boat taking pictures and helping when I can, but mainly trying to stay out of the way and not trip over anything.  

With the boat we want (our dream boat, so to say) he wouldn't have this problem because, it has it's very own engine room and that makes hubs super-duper happy!!! 

We had been mulling it over when our broker stopped by and asked again, if we had any interest. Of course it's enticing because, it's the "dream boat"! But, we would only consider selling ours if:

a) we made money off the sale

b) we ended up with the dream boat

But how often does that happen?

Then the broker says, we could always fly your boat in under the radar at the upcoming boat show, see if we get any bites and if it works out good, then great and if not, you're not out anything. We both nod yes, (I'm thinking because, that could be an option). As our broker walks away though, I look at hubs and ask, "Did I just agree to what I think we just agreed to?" His reply: "Yep!"

In the end, we decided it was just to sudden for us! We want time to enjoy our current boat and we weren't looking to be homeless yet again. That, and the boat that got all this started was already sale-pending a week prior to the boat show. 

Joe has always been a wheelin' & dealin' kinda guy, especially if he can turn a profit! It was always cars in the past, but since we have moved onto a boat, that all stopped. But somewhere in the back of my mind I always knew he'd find his way back to it and I'm wondering now if it's going to be in the form of boats?! 

Just because we didn't put our boat in the boat show doesn't mean we have changed our minds. One day, we will get the forever boat, but first we need to decide which one she is!!