Time for a Larger Vessel

After spending a few years on our Catalina 36 we decided that in order to live full time aboard we needed to upgrade. Don't get me wrong, I loved the Catalina. If our intentions were to stay in the Great Lakes and use it every summer, we would have kept it forever. But these are not our intentions. As of the writing of this blog input we have 698 days til "retirement". For us that means we plan to sail south and then eventually east...who knows where or for how long ?? Since we cannot actually afford "retirement" and are way too young for pensions we need to have any boat upgrades paid for now while we are still gainfully employed.
So we made the obligatory lists...his and hers....he wants electonic "gadgets" of all sorts and more sail options ..I want a new stove, a second head and a shower...you see how this goes :) Then we compared, altered (by this I mean choose what we could not afford to live without montarily) and finalized our plan to boat shop.
Most importantly was how big of a boat could we handle with just the two of us and also afford to keep buy and float ?
As Canadians, we soon realised that anyone with a boat in our area believed because their boat was "not used" part of the year and "lived only in fresh water" that it was worth a great deal more than a similar boat south of the border. NONSENSE ! We had purchased our Catalina south of the border, in Massachusetts, had a very easy transaction and loved the boat. We could and certainly would explore that option again.
At first we thought we might like a Catamaran. We searched and scoured the internet. Again looking for something we could afford that fit our list of needs/wants. We found a model we really liked and discovered there were two for sale. One in Florida and one in Texas. Florida is a quick cheap flight from our home near Toronto Canada so we set off to see it. We arranged ahead of time for both a sea trail and a haul-out with a surveyor. Sea trail went well. Off to a good start we got quite excited. The next day the surveyor gave us the bad news....delamination in more than a dozen places in the hull. We asked for a reduced rate in the price realising it was going to cost thousands to repair. Owner said no, we walked or rather flew away back to Canada.
Really liking this particular boat we decided to try the one in Texas. We could have just paid someone to just look at it for us but after the first one my husband wanted to see for himself. Off he went to Texas. Guess what ?? Same problem !!! So on that note we scrapped the Catamaran idea and went back to searching for a monohull.

 After much debate, time and money we found her ! A 45 ft Dufour Ketch with a pilot house. It was living in Georgetown, South Carolina.