We have been sailing since 1994 when Carla surprised me with a sailing vacation to the
British Virgin Islands. We went with out friends Ben and Janet. We knew after one day that we loved cruising/sailing. We have since been back to the BVI about 12 times and every time fell more in love with it. We are now on our 4th sailboat since the fateful vacation. We even live in a house on Lake Norman and spent most of our free moments on the water. “The guys” raced every Wednesday during the summer for the last 12 years. We loved every minute of it and drained the refrigerator of beer every week.
But all of that was not the real catalyst for this trip. It all started when we adopted our daughter from Russia. She was a very important piece of the puzzle to complete the picture of our crew/family. The journey to Russia on two different trips gave us a taste of really experiencing different cultures. We knew then we really wanted to be “citizens of the world”.
We started to look for a boat in June of 2005 while we were in Palm Beach at Carla’s Sales Conference. Did I mention how successful, smart and compassionate Carla was at her job as a Stock Broker? Her clients will truly miss her. She has a great heart and approached the job as truly a way to help people achieve their dreams. Now we are achieving ours
Ok back to the story…… On a whim we traveled to Fort Lauderdale to look at a used sailboat. It was a Prout catamaran names Sylvester. The boat had a real homey feeling to it. We came close to making an offer in on it. But more importantly it proved that a used sailboat was an acceptable option. We spent many many months looking at boats on the internet. Meanwhile Carla had out house Fung Shui’d and it proved to be very helpful. They also gave us advice on what to look for in a boat. So no a Fung Shui acceptable boat was a factor in the purchase. This made for a very challenging list of criteria for a boat.
