WOW! What a stressful process. It started with a couple from Port Orchard that made us a fair offer on the boat, and they had covered moorage at the Port Orchard Yacht Club. They scheduled a survey and haul out which turned out to be an all-day event with 4 additional people on the boat during the survey. The surveyor found some minor issues but nothing that wasn’t easily fixed. That couple ended up backing out before they even got the final survey report. We believe she wanted a boat, but he did not.

On to the next buyers… another good offer for just the boat and another survey and haul out scheduled for one week later. We spent the week in-between the surveys fixing some of the issues that came up on the first survey. Kim hired an electrician to add a fuse and bigger ground wire on the inverter. David painted the top of the fuel tanks, fixed a small exhaust leak, and cleaned a bunch of connections in the bonding system. The next survey went great and we thought we had the boat sold. Unfortunately, the buyers called us the next day and backed out due to personal issues. We were disappointed because they were great people!

What an emotional roller coaster for Kim because she loved the boat and then to have 2 in a row fall through for reasons not related to issues on the boat was stressful. Luckily the surveys are paid for by potential buyers.

Throughout this process we had a buyer for the boathouse, but they did not want the boat. They already have an 85′ boat and wanted the boathouse for their 26′ fishing boat. They ended up making Kim an offer to buy the boat and boathouse and then they would sell the boat themselves. Due to our time constraints, Kim accepted their offer even though it was not as much as she would have liked to get for the boat and boathouse. They had us go along with them to take the boat to their broker in Lake Washington. This turned out to be another great memory because we got to go through the Ballard Locks.

You always hear people say the two best days in a boaters life is the day they buy it and the day they sell it. This was not the case for us, especially Kim. Kim’s boat was a big part of her. Kim bought this boat all on her own, learned to pilot it and work on it herself. She really enjoyed it for the past 8 years. She was the Captain of El Solteron. Kim’s retirement plan was to live on the boat and she gave it up to follow David’s plan to RV. She is hoping that whoever buys the boat loves it as much as Kim did. There were a lot of tears shed throughout this process, but it just didn’t make sense to let the boat deteriorate while we were traveling. So on to the next chapter!