Birvidik

You're not the only ship
Adrift on this ocean
You're not the only one
That's feeling lonesome
You're not the only one
With mixed emotions

So it looks as if it is done. After 21 years of ownership, including 11 years of living aboard and two years on the market it seems we have sold Birvidik, unless the survey turns up some hidden potential catastrophe. I should be over the moon with excitement but my emotions are somewhat more complex.

The first hint came when we were sprucing her up for the viewing, We had had so many false alarms that we didn’t really expect her to sell, but these viewers had expressed an interest for quite a while and had paid out to travel from the UK to Greece just to view her. It suddenly struck me that this might be for real. I turned to Liz and observed that I felt like someone grooming a beloved pet prior to taking it to the vet’s to have it put down.

I know it’s absurd. I know you can’t betray an inanimate object. I also know that such an analytical approach doesn’t seem to work with boats, and that’s what it felt like – a betrayal. It seems impossible, for us at least, to resist anthropomorphising them. Birvidik is like an old, close friend; a member of the family. She has saved our necks from the consequences of our own ineptitude and arrogance on far more occasions than we deserve. She has also damn near killed us on occasions, but you get those sorts of ups and downs in any relationship.

All this leads to the absurd situation where we are vetting potential buyers to see if they are good enough for our beloved Birvidik. Fortunately, John and Elaine fit the bill perfectly and so we can carry on with the sale with only minor triggering of our guilt chips.

While we wait for the surveyor to try to squeeze us in to his busy schedule, we are frantically trying to empty Birvidik of the detritus of 10 years living aboard. It’s endless – no wonder we’ve had to raise the waterline twice. All this activity explains the paucity of blog updates and the brevity of this one. Once we’re all sorted out we’ll be off to France, Belgium and Holland looking for our next boat.

It’s all very exciting, but it will be difficult for any other boat to replace Birvidik in our hearts.

John & Elaine, we wish you all the best with Birvidik. May she serve you as well as she has served us and may she give you as much joy as she has given us.

Birvidik, goodbye, old friend. Fare Well.