Peripatetic

Well, our dreamy four-and-a-half month housesit is over.  Here's Alisa over the weekend, in the midst of the final clean-up.

We're now in our third Tasmanian housesit, a two-bedroom flat in West Hobart that a friend of a friend very kindly made available to us while she was away.

We continue to believe that we'll be living on our next boat before we know it.  But meanwhile, this bouncing around between housesits is what we're doing.  I don't particularly love the feeling of being a 42 year old serial housesitter,  dragging the kids and our stuff from place to place like this.  But then we're also not prepared to sign a lease on a place and settle into Hobart for six months.

Luckily Elias seems completely unfazed by all this moving around.  And Eric of course has no idea what's going on.  And Alisa, let me say, is a complete champ about it all.  Few moms with a three month old and a four year old could handle moving around like this so gracefully.

I think it's a sign of how strongly she's committed to continuing the sailing dream, and the inconvenience that she's willing to put up with to make it happen.

Either that...or maybe I'm such a wonderful husband that she's willing to put up with the occasional bout of homelessness just to be with me?

Pelagic For Sale

Hard to believe we would ever arrive at this milestone, but I suppose that milestones in boat ownership are a lot like milestones in life, in that they have a way of arriving, will you or no.  Which is to say that we have stuck to our decision that a growing family and (inshallah) years still to cruise mean that we would like a (slightly) bigger boat.  Pelagic is for sale in Hobart, Tasmania, listed here.

Seven Months

Well, it was a bit of an anti-climax when it finally happened.  I went down to the customs broker's office yesterday, paid him quite a lot of money, and received a little pile of paperwork in return.  And, voilà, Pelagic is imported into Australia, able to stay as long as she pleases, and legal to advertise for sale.

I wonder if she can go on the dole, too?

The whole process took just two days less than seven months.  It's all in the past, now, except for a snarky bill or two that I'm sure we'll get from the first customs broker, who was unable to complete the job in the five months that he was on it.

Meanwhile, the boat is in great nick as I've had heaps of time to get her up to snuff.

In that regard, I'd like to make a particular mention of the contribution made by my dad, who spent a good bit of time helping me on the boat when my folks were visiting a couple months ago - in this picture he's topping up the batteries.  Dad also helped me work on the boat when we first bought Pelagic, and he's been a big supporter of the dream all along.