I have heard it said many times that when one door closes another one opens – even sometimes that when a door closes a window opens. It seems to us that since the day we decided to pursue a simpler, less stressed life aboard a yacht and spend some time sailing, that new doors open without even the last one shutting first – that windows are flung wide and that the choice – made to put our health and wellbeing ahead of financial gain – is rewarding us with blessing after blessing.

Over and over again, when we were preparing to leave Canberra to head to Albany, amazing things happened. We found the boat of our dreams and negotiated a price we could afford. We sold the car. We listed the house and sold it in a week. The furniture and items we would have no need for just walked out the door. It was amazing. Even after we arrived in Albany it kept happening. We literally swapped Peters beloved V8 ute for a car we could sight-see in (blessing the man who did the swap who had, all his life, longed for a V8 ute and never been able to own one) and then, when we were ready to leave Albany, sold that car for more than the ute was worth. We kept gasping at the way life was unfolding for us.

It has happened again. We have been given the opportunity to purchase an amazing boat, one that when I looked at it left me thinking, ‘Oh, if I could only ‘ave that boat - then I would be truly ‘appy’ (thanks Russell Brand for the loan of these words!).

Of course this door opening means another is really closing - we must now part with Argos.

Argos who has meant so much to us – from whom we learned everything – how to sail, how to read the weather, how to understand the ocean, even how to live this simpler life. She was at the top of our price range – the best we could do with what we had available to us. And she was more beautiful than we had even imagined. I remember when Peter got to Albany ahead of me and I was still packing up the house and finalising all the cleaning and everything before leaving on the plane with the children – how he had called to say he had arrived. I asked, ‘Is she as good as the pictures?’ And he had said, ‘Better, so much better’.
It was true. We had taken a big chance buying her without being able to see her first – but we had no regrets – she was, and still is a beautiful boat. We have learned so much in her and because of her. In the Bight, when the auto-pilot failed I formed a bond with her that showed me I could sail – I could really do this thing we were embarking on and face my fears.

We have loved sailing in to a new town or port and watched as people noticed her. There was always such a sense of pride and delight as people wanted to see this amazing and very unusual yacht.

Out on the ocean she has kept us safe and in return we took very good care of her.

There is nothing about sailing Argos that we haven’t liked. She is slow but steady and the inadequacies of sailing an older-style boat have been far outweighed by the beauty, the quirky lovely beauty that she brought to our lives.

Just the other morning a local, who had seen the boat tied at the jetty for a few months, asked me if I wasn’t sick-to-death of living on board the boat by now. I was taken aback but had to laugh – no, I replied, not at all – I love it.

And I do. I love the freedom, the ease of our life, the fact that we really can pick up and go when we are ready, travel to other places, see more of this country and each day delight in the simple life we lead.

Even during bad weather we have found that we can easily cope – cabin fever as they call it is simply something to be managed – like bad weather or hard times in a house – at such times I plan and organise and keep on top of personal gripes and grumbles, and ensure that whenever we can, we get on deck or off the boat.

The yacht we are purchasing is bigger, significantly bigger and we will have room to spare, more room to live and more room for storage. This in the end has been the only thing we have found hard on Argos. We weren’t looking to buy a new boat at this time but the opportunity arose and we have of course decided to seize the day!

Letting go of Argos is of course hard, but this is tempered by our hope that she will go to a good home. Yes, I suppose that does make her sound like a pet, but the reality is she is far more than just a boat to us – she has been our life.

We hope to pass Argos on to someone who, like us who will appreciate and value her, who will sail her with the delight we have known and for whom she will be the special and amazing yacht she has shown herself to be to us.

We have brought many of her systems forward while we’ve owned her – improved many aspects of her and shown her the loving care she has always deserved. We know that we are passing her on in much better shape than she was in when we stumbled across her in Albany.

It has been almost two years since we first saw pictures of her on the internet. Since we first fell in love with her shape and lines, her stern window and the sense we got of the unexpected when we first found her. It has been the best two years and while it may be time to say our good-byes it will be no easy task.

She can only go to someone who will care for her as we have and hopefully someone who will find her as delightful as we know she is. In letting her go, the one thing we can be sure of is that she will be a delight and a blessing to whoever gets her.

Check out the advertisement on boatsonline.com.au – you can search using the key word ‘Argos’.

The next part of our life is just around the corner. Peter still has the house to build here, beginning very soon and we hope that we will find a buyer for Argos while he is building. Once the house is finished we will be off, and not in quite the way we had thought!