Our first vision of Anthem was from behind locked gates when we spied her mast, bedecked with an American and A Canadian flag, above the toilet and shower block at the Manly Marina in Brisbane. She was on the hard stand having some work done to her bottom (could stand a bit of that myself!) and awaiting another survey that we had to have done. Even from there she looked pretty.

As we waited for the broker to come and let us in, we speculated about the owners (would they turn out to be bonkers as well?), wondered if we'd wasted our time again (this was now our 3th trip to Queensland in 7 months), plus we were wilting in the humidity and trying to stand in 2 square feet of shade. The broker Anita and her partner arrived and took us to meet Anthem's owners before I actually melted onto the footpath.

Walking towards the boat, she seemed huge (we'd had a 20' Austral Trailer Sailer which felt like a toy boat compared to this one and which gave me concussion every time we went out in her. Best... fun...ever!) Climbing up the ladder to the deck was a treat...NOT! I don't like heights and I have dicky knees but after the first half a dozen times up and down, and once I realised that the ladder was secure and Dave was below me to catch me if I fell (well, cushion me anyway), and the boat wasn't going to tip off the stand, I was okay.
(N.B. Never expect to find anywhere in this blog, either in the near or distant future, that I went up the mast for any reason. Not gonna happen, no way, ever! Just sayin'.)

Anyway, back to our meet and greet with the owners....

Jack, a former airline captain from the USA (who kind of looks like a cross between Jeff Bridges and another actor I can never remember the name of) and the gorgeous Janice, a cardiac surgical nurse originally from Canada turned out to be the nicest people we could ever hope to meet and took us into their vessel with open arms. They had sailed Anthem to many parts of the planet (Jack sailing her for 6 years and Jan joining him for the last 2) and the time had come for them to make a change to a bigger boat.

We stayed for hours, poking about, taking notes, taking photos, swapping stories and generally getting to know each other. It was like a meeting of the United Nations and after a while we didn't even notice their funny accents. :-) .

Anthem was lovely, well equipped, needed a bit more storage (which worried me a lot for a little while). On the whole though, she was perfect and she was going to be ours. We'd already decided and by that evening the deposit had been paid.

The next day she was taken from her stand and lowered into the water where she belonged. On the water, her lines could now be seen. She was sweeping and graceful and just a very pretty boat.

This was her sea trial and with perfect weather, Jack and Jan took us out and showed us what she was all about. Dave had an absolute ball and couldn't get the grin off his face. He was like a kid with a really big new toy. For me, a couple of slightly nervous 'tippage' moments (I felt like such a wuss, but this was one of the -'age's I mentioned earlier. Get used to seeing those because I may mention them a LOT!) soon passed and I settled in to enjoy the cruise.

When we got back to shore, we took more pictures as we left her at the berth and gave and received huge hugs from Jack and Jan. We were leaving for home at 6 the next morning but Dave would be back in a couple of weeks to settle some things and take her out again with Jack and Jan before they flew back to the USA to search for their next floaty home. I wish them love and a lot of luck in their endeavour and I really hope we meet them again somewhere, sometime.

Dave's dream was finally becoming reality. We had our boat after so many years of searching and I couldn't be happier for him. :)