We started the boat search years ago, always looking for a great boat at a bargain price. Numerous boats looked good but either the timing was not right or the location was not right. Finally the timing was almost right and we decided it was now, because the timing would never really be completely right. We had our eye on this Pilothouse Sailboat in the Seattle area Craigslist for some time and decided I would travel from our home in the interior of Alaska to check it out. The move felt like we were dipping our feet in to check out the water. So instead we decided we would backup, take a running leap and just jump in with both feet. We bought two one-way tickets to Seattle with the only plan to find a boat in the Seattle area and sail back to Alaska. A broker was contacted a week before we left and we told him we would like to look at as many boats that met our outlined criteria, and we would definitely be buying a boat. Arriving on Thursday in Renton Wa. to take advantage of the hospitality of my Sister and Brother-in-law, we had a place to stay and a car to use. At 0530 Friday we were heading to Anacortes, 2hrs away, to catch a one hour ferry to Orcas Island to look at the Craigslist listed boat. The boat was a 1988 Saturna 33’ pilothouse Sloop, well equipped with the comforts for coastal cruising. We loved the boat, but the broker we contacted had several others and we had an appointment with him to look at a Gulf pilothouse sloop the following day. While I was ready to tell the Saturna owner “we’ll let you know”, Donna was ready to buy it right then and there. Now there is something that seems real counterintuitive to buying the very first boat that you look at and I was hesitant. But… this boat was twice the sailor that a Gulf 32 was, the Gulf being more of a motorsailor. And the other boats the broker had lined up were nearly twice our budget criteria (funny how brokers seem to ignore that). So we decided to make the seller an offer, the Saturna was also over our budget. Well the good news is the seller accepted the offer outright and our shopping was over before it really got started. We were on our way to being being the new owners, pending a satisfactory boat survey. …more-to-come