Blue Pearl

Out of the blue, we decided to ask about one in Florida that had been sitting for a while… with quite a considerable price tag.  We put in a stupid bid and the next thing we knew we were in the boat buying business again.  We went to Brad’s grad from Mechanical Engineering at UBC on Tuesday evening and then brought him with us as we flew from Vancouver to Tampa on Wednesday.  We saw the boat on Thursday morning and it was hard not to grin.  As we walked up to it we could see that it had been kept up.  Getting on we noticed several small jobs taking place… fixing the sliders on the hatch and some damage on one of the rub rails.



The sea trials were great; the survey is fine.  There is a long list of things that should be looked at… just like my lists at home.  There is another list of things that we would like to do soon and then another list of things we need to someday.  The surveyor told us three times… cruise it for six months before you decide to do anything.  Get a sense of what is a wish and what is a need.  We think we NEED solar panels so that might be our only extravagance.


We will cruise it this summer – in the Florida blast furnace heat and put it on the hard in Georgia from September to December.  A potential itinerary might include bouncing down the west coast to Sarasota, Port Charlotte, Fort Meyers and Marathon.  Then up the east for a bit – maybe a crossing to Bimini and up to Freeport.  Then back to Florida and up to the Georgia border at St. Marys.  We’ll see.

Disappointment... and Relief

As we ran out to the Gypsy Queen on our crappy dinghy we began to get apprehensive.  It really looked rough.  The fiberglass sides were incredibly oxidized and the caprails (rails around the edge) were brown and faded with too many coats of varnish.
 

When we got on the boat, everything was stained, faded – the stainless steel was dull and splattered with paint.  Down below, the woodwork looked awful from too many coats of varnish and oil.  Pieces of trim were missing and everything was dirty.  The cabin sole was bashed in near where the table leg fits.  There was evidence of lots of half assed repairs.  I know there are businesses that “stage” your home when you go to sell it.  This boat badly needed “staging.”  There was a half-full bottle of spaghetti sauce in the fridge with a layer of mold on top.

We were incredibly disappointed with the looks but tried to keep an open mind.  We looked at the generator and worried about the process of either removing it or fixing it.  The water maker was stuffed in a locker with pipes and tubes all over.  The lockers were full of Bob’s and the previous owners’ stuff.  It was really disappointing.


We took it out for a sail and it performed ok.  I looked at the place where the boom connects with the mast and it was hanging on by 2 screws – missing 4 others. 


There was rust... or paint embedded in the stainless standing rigging.  It was quite breezy and the boat really heeled over a couple of times - more than I might have thought.  We didn’t put up the staysail.  I was wondering how the headsail would work coming about around the staysail but it seemed to be OK.  Half of the engine instruments didn’t work, the knot meter didn’t work and the wind speed indicator was hooped.

Coming back, some of the owner’s boxes skidded across the floor and knocked off another piece of teak trim.  You could see that it had been previously repaired… poorly… like everything else.

After we got back and the skipper probed for our approval, we realized that we were not going to move forward on this boat.  Our suitcases have masks, snorkels, water shoes and other things we were going to leave on the boat.  We really thought we were going to buy it.  But no.

Now we have a huge sense of relief that we aren’t going to be faced with the substantial repairs that are necessary before this boat is something of which to be proud.

We are going to make a holiday out of this… and keep looking.

Taking the Plunge... We think

So... we found an IP 38 in Saint Thomas and the owners are motivated to sell.  They will discount the boat if they don't have to move it to Florida.  We've agreed on a price and we are set for sea-trials on Monday, March 9 during Spring Break.

We are aware of a number of deficiencies on this boat... the AC doesn't work, the generator is pooched and the watermaker needs a new membrane.  There are lots of signs of wear and tear and we will be doing lots of minor maintenance.

However, we never thought about putting AC on the boat.  Also we were hoping for solar and wind to supplement our power and our friend Gary has built his own watermaker that he swears by.  These things aren't deal breakers.  We learned later in the negotiations that the autopilot doesn't work and that concerned us.  But... the owners are willing to make that problem go away so we feel good about that.  We will have to put new sails on in a year or so, the caprails need to be stripped, sanded and varnished and we'd like to get the hull polished and waxed.



On the plus side, the price is great, there is a decent dinghy and a new outboard to go with it.  The water and fuel tanks often deteriorate on these boats but this one has had them replaced.  There are tons of extras with this one.  It has radar, SSB radio, the dinghy and motor, davits for the dingy, a life sling and on and on.

We can see us making significant upgrades over the next few years but it looks darn good!  We're hoping we step aboard and fall in love with it.

The boat is currently named Gypsy Queen.  Do we keep the name?  We don't hate it.  Or, do we call her Miss Pearl 2?  Or is there something better?  We are having a hard time with that.

Doing the Research

As retirement was approaching I was becoming increasingly distracted with thoughts of returning to the Caribbean.  We have been back to the Bahamas a number of times in the 30 years since we taught there.  We have also chartered in the BVI and Guadeloupe – so we’ve had some time to sketch out some retirement sail planning.  Spending time with friends in Puerto Morales in Mexico and more time in Belize and Roatan only added to our determination to spend significant parts of our cold Canadian winters somewhere other than Canada.  We are comfortable on our little Aloha 27 and with our chartering we know that something bigger takes a little getting used to … but we are confident in our abilities.

We are looking for the perfect boat.  A Valiant?  Made right near here in Bellingham.  What about Pacific Seacraft.  Our friends, Gary and Donna purchased a steel boat on the east coast – an Amazon 37 – that was built here in Surrey, BC.  However, there are too many variables including brands, lengths, levels of equipment, prices, etc.  Over the first couple of years we bounced from idea to idea and grew increasing frustrated.

Finally, motivated by the fervor of the people on the Island Packet list serve, we preserved our sanity by limiting ourselves to an IP.  Perhaps a 31 or 32.

First IP we looked at...

These fit into our price range and seemed doable in terms of learning to manage.  Unfortunately, we looked at some 35s and 38s.  So now the sights are set higher.

In the last couple of years we’ve looked at a 38 in Ft. Lauderdale,

Wow!

travelled to the Caymans in the summer of 2007 to check out a 35

Oh well, it was a good trip!

and then most recently to Tampa to see some

A beautiful IP 35

35s and 38s in the Tampa Bay area.  We wanted to see a 35 and a 38 on the same day so we could judge.  Seeing a 35 out of context makes us think that it is next to heaven.  Same with the 38.

Could this be the one?

But we got to see both within 24 hours and now we are sold.

So... it is to be an Island Packet 38!

But which one?  Fort Lauderdale?  Sarasota?  Orange Beach, Alabama?

What we will do, is to find the best deal in the next couple of months.  Of course our plans are being undermined by the unbelievable decline in the value of the Canadian dollar.  But who cares?  We are in a carpe diem state of mind.  After Christmas we will make an offer.

I wonder what will happen?

Naming Miss Pearl!

At anchor in the Gulf Islands

Miss Pearl - Glen Roger

In 1978 my wife, Pam and I taught school in Inagua, the southernmost island of the Bahamian island chain. Inagua is 100 km from Cape Haitian, Haiti and about the same distance from Guantanemo Bay, Cuba. On a dark night you can climb the lighthouse at Southeast Point and see the lights of the American naval base in Cuba. Life in Inagua was surreal, too weird to describe here. There were 7 bars and 7 churches - a strategic balance. I mostly worshipped at Mrs. Pearl Ingraham's 'After Work Bar.' When I first arrived in the Bahamas I realized that, while English was the lingua franca, I couldn't understand much of that which was spoken. With the heavy Caribbean accent I could only pick up every fourth or fifth word in a sentence so mostly I would smile and nod agreeably. I'm pretty sure I was known as the expatriate idiot from some small Canadian village. Miss Pearl would take care of me, making sure my drink was full, although she was pretty stingy with the ice.

Pam and I used to spend as much time as we could in the boat basin near Freddie's Bar. The most amazing people transited through here. A 20 year old from France in a 25 foot sloop with 2 cats, a 30 year old real estate agent from Texas who made so much money in commercial real estate that he needed to get away to spend a bit of his money, an entrepreneur from Boston who was going to generate power with heat exchangers by piping cold water from the depths of the ocean near Vieques Island.

There was a rugged, bearded sailor with 3 beautiful women and a baby. Turns out, one was his wife, two were his daughters and the baby was born after they were wrecked and dismasted off the Agmolian Reef off South Africa. They had build the boat in Sault Saint Marie, made their way down the lakes, locks and canals to the Mississippi and then down the Bahamas to our island - seven years before we got there. When we met them they had sailed around the world and their arrival at Matthewtown, Inagua completed their circumnavigation. They celebrated by sharing a drink of stove fuel (rum from Haiti), having a shower at our house and then burgers at Miss Pearl's.

Another time we met an old couple, both with gnarly, arthritic fingers. They had to be in their seventies. They wandered into town looking for the Immigration Officer with a huge tuna, hoping to bribe the officer for an easy entry into the Bahamas. They had just finished the Cape Town to Rio trans Atlantic race and were cruising up to Florida.

And one day a group of regal visitors arrived at the airport and were transported to the 'Red Lion III’, which was tied up waiting for them. The young captain and crew (his wife) had been in the basin for a week on the chance that the owners would join them. For the most part they would arrive in Saint Thomas or some other port to wait for the owners and would be told that plans had changed and they were to proceed to Tierra del Fuego.

One day on the way to school we saw an 18-foot run-about tied up near the dock. When we ran into him later at Miss Pearl's he told us he was from Calgary and had purchased his boat in Florida to catch tropical fish in the British Virgin Islands to send to land-locked Albertans.

An Islander 44 named Tavaki arrived from the south in June that year with a mutinous crew. Two of them left the boat in Inagua and headed back south with an elderly, inexperienced couple that had retired, bought their retirement sailboat and took off without knowing what they were doing. Pam and I went with Tavaki as replacement crew members. Later, when we got to Long Island, Bahamas, an attractive couple left or were asked to leave Tavaki after they woke up the rest of the crew yelling through the throes of passion. But that’s another story.

That's not even getting into the constant flow of Haitian boats, full of bananas, plantains, mangos, casaba root, goats and, often, illegal immigrants - with an open pit fire on the deck, with a mast cut from a precious Haitian tree that looked a corkscrew - who navigated with the stars, the currents and by line of sight to sell their cargo in Nassau.

What experiences!!!

Every time I would learn of another adventure I would come back to “Miss Pearl's” to talk to her about the amazing people and boats and places. I swore to 'Miss Pearl' that someday I would own a boat like one of those. She would laugh, in a way that didn't hurt, and say, "Roger, man - you ain't never goin' ta own a boat like that!" After a while, I started to reply boldly, "Miss Pearl, someday I'm going to buy a boat like that - and when I do I'm going to name her after you."

And that's how Miss Pearl got her name. We came back to Canada in 1979, moved to British Columbia and when we could least afford it, we bought Miss Pearl, an Aloha 27. A beautiful picture of Miss Pearl is mounted in the cabin - smiling at the crew!

Visiting Mrs. Pearl Ingraham in 1992