Well *that* didn't take long! After several months running a logistical gauntlet, Rina and I finally settled in the Summerlin area of Las Vegas, up against the Red Rock Canyon. Once the u-haul road buzz wore off in we turned our attention to building a plan for our next boat. Like the real estate market, demand is sky high for boats, and especially cruising catamarans. Delivery of new boats are scheduled years away, making planning a daunting obstacle. While that shiny new boat sheen was alluring, we also knew that commissioning new boats can be just as challenging as adapting a previously owned boat to our needs. Most brokerage cats are on the east coast and even more concentrated in Florida and the Caribbean. More daunting obstacles.... Do we live on the boat in Florida and then sail through the Panama canal and up to Mexico when we get a chance? Do we ship it to Ensenada at $large$ expense and then live aboard?

Oh yea, and we're going to be grandparents for the first time in March, so we're not going anywhere soon if Rina has anything to do with it. Conundrums abound.....

Over the past couple of months we kicked the fenders of several cats, Bali's, New Lagoon 42's, Leopards, etc. Between that and time on Alyssa's Voyage Norseman 43 and Dietmar's Lagoon 440 in Fiji we had zero'd in on the rough specs.... ~45' LOA, owners cabin layout, no fly bridge, no more than 10 years old, well maintained. Then we got the call that changed everything.

One of the brokers we met along the way let us know that a 2016 Lagoon 450S was just coming on the market and would go very quickly. Would we like to take a look before it showed up on Yachtworld? When boats of this caliber come on the market, they are often bought sight unseen with multiple offers and bidding wars. Would we do the same? We just settled in Vegas... is this too soon? Argg! We scheduled a road trip to the bay area to see the boat but the next day we got a call from the broker explaining that an offer was coming in and that if we had any chance of getting her, we would need to place an offer ASAP. Having recently helped daughter Megan navigate the frenzied real estate market, this felt very familiar.

We ended up putting in a full price offer, putting us in first position for the time being. Then the original buyer matched, and we had to find a way to differentiate ourselves. Once again relying on real estate tactics, we wrote the seller a letter explaining our history and our plans to cruise and that helped tip the balance. Turns out they are long time cruisers and wanted the boat to go to someone who shared that dream. We still had a problem though. This was happening way too fast as we are committed to Las Vegas for another year at least and we won't be ready to cruise for awhile.

The last piece of the puzzle then fell into place. Passage Nautical happens to run a day charter program in the bay area, where there is high demand for catamarans that can host 12 people for the typical 4 hour day sails. After reviewing the financials for the program, it was a no brainer. With just a few charters a month, the boat will pay for itself while we figure out the long-term plan. So after an intense couple of weeks of sea trials, surveys and the obligatory paperwork shuffle, we are the new owners of SV Iliohale (ee-lee-o-hall-ey) which means dog house in Hawaiian.

We have lots to learn and are frankly intimidated by the sheer mass of this boat, but we love to learn new things, and this will be no different. Rina and I will get plenty of time on the boat to learn her systems and how to sail a cat, while we develop our longer term plan to cross the Pacific Ocean again some time in our future.