A lot has happened since the last update. Upon returning from our Peru Trip, our focus switched to getting the boat ready for showing to prospective buyers that we had connected with on the internet. Last year in October, I had put a ad on Multihulls 4 Us website to see what kind if interest there was in our boat and to see if we could sell it down in Panama, instead of bringing the boat back to the Florida, which was our original plan. We received lots of inquires and one of them was from an Australian couple that were looking to buy a Catamaran the following year in spring - which was pretty much the same timing we were thinking about. We remained in contact through out the winter and by February they made us an offer and before we knew it we had an accepted offer on Five Islands. This offer was subject to inspection and a survey, so we wanted to get everything "ship-shape" before they arrived. Survey day was set for April 21 with John & Sue arriving on April the 20th. We had about 3 weeks to get ready, and it turned out that we used ALL of that time to get ready. We did all of the typical cleaning like washing the decks, cleaning and polishing the stainless, buffing the hulls, scrubbing and cleaning out the bilges etc, etc, etc. But we also had a bigger project that in typical boat fashion turned out to be larger than originally thought. We had a shaft seal leaking which I thought was the extent of the problem, but as soon as I had a couple of different mechanics look at it they both saw that the motor mounts were shot, which was causing the shaft problem. So I had to track down motor mounts & Cutlass Bearings and arrange to get them shipped to Panama. In order to change the shaft seals, the boat had to pulled from the water, so we also decided to put on a coat of paint while she was out. By the time survey day came around the boat was sparkling and had never looked better. The survey and inspection went well and I think John & Sue were pleased with what they saw. Only a couple of items were found in the survey, with the major one being some corrosion on the cross beam where the SS bow roller is bolted on to the aluminium cross beam. After a number of anxious days of waiting around for the final decision they decided to move forward and close on the boat. We had the money by the end of the week and spent our last night on Five Islands on April 29. It was a sad day leaving Five Islands and handing over the keys - much harder than I had anticipated. Even though it was hard to part with Five Islands, I am very pleased with the way we were able to sell her. The usual story you hear from people is them having to leave the boat paying expensive monthly fees and then paying people to clean and maintain and they hiring a captain to run the boat if someone wants to take a look. And then paying 10% broker fees when you do sell! We were able to avoid all of those things.

We decided to spend a few days in Panama driving around and seeing the interior of the country and checking out the pacific side, before flying home. We really like Panama and think it would be a great place to buy some property for down the road.

We are now back in Calgary and I have already been for 1 job interview and have some other possibilities lined up. We have bought a vehicle and I have an awesome smart phone and the house is starting to come around.
It will take some time to adjust to life back home. It is quite different than the last two summers where we came home for a visit, but you knew you were going back to the boat. We are both going through withdrawal. Karen was looking on the internet for Bareboat Charters and I was looking at boats for sale in Vancouver!