Farewell To India

David and I have sold the boat.  

Many of you might be wondering why, after all the love and attention we have bestowed upon our india and after all the wonderful adventures we have enjoyed these last few years, we have decided to let her go.  And the simple answer is that it was time.  The perfect time, in fact, where the perfect opportunity arose rather serendipitously at the perfect moment.  It involved a lot of moving parts and a considerable amount of patience and cooperative effort from all involved parties to make it happen but in the end it has been a very elegant, although bittersweet transition.  

Most of you will remember that at the end of the year 2018, when David and I had plans to move to London we surprised everyone with an unexpected announcement that we were buying a sailboat to cruise the South Pacific for a couple of years and by January 10th 2019, we were proud boat owners.  A lot has happened since then to change our plans and everyone else’s for that matter, which no one could have foreseen.  First of which, in our lives anyway, we started out with only one grandchild when we left Florida for our great adventure and now we have three!  The two youngest are well over two years old now and we don’t want to miss spending any more years with them.  It might have made a difference if we had all been able to travel to see each other as originally planned, but that was not possible in our Covid reality.  

Covid has put a strain on, well, everything.  It has certainly changed the way that cruising sailboats are able to navigate the globe.  We were lucky enough to get out of Panama and get in to French Polynesia and extend our stay there when the pandemic first broke out in 2020.  Then we were fortunate to have an option for cyclone season in Hawaii followed by a haven in Fiji the next year.  But for us sailors, the distances we now need to travel are much greater than anticipated and the paperwork and medical tests required for entry into foreign countries are far more complicated, time consuming and expensive than ever before.  Sadly, for most of us, we are missing out on some of the places we came all this way to see in the process and making passages of thousands of miles to our cruising grounds, not hundreds, as it once was.  And that is only if we are permitted entry into the destination countries whose rules are constantly changing.  But we are good natured travelers and are grateful to be out here doing what we can without complaining too much.  We know how fortunate we are, but again, our current Covid reality has become somewhat onerous.

Some of the places we have spent our time have been extremely remote.  Fiji certainly is and was still in partial lockdown when I discovered a health issue that needed attention.  After about two months of monitoring the situation, I was finally diagnosed and able to mange my health with medication.  I don’t want anyone to worry about me.  I am fine.  But sometimes things happen forcing one to recognize that maybe this is a sign that a change of lifestyle is in order.  David and I don’t consider ourselves old just yet but we are not getting any younger, as they say, and it is not as easy to live this particular lifestyle under normal conditions let alone….in our current Covid reality.

So there you have it in a nutshell but there also a few other reasons as in the original plan was an end goal of arriving to Australia after only a couple of years of cruising, and here we are, even though we had considered a circumnavigation at a point.  Also, it seems that I have lived a lifetime at sea and I really do long for a bit more luxury and convenience on land at this juncture in my life.  We both do.  David misses his guitars and 911 and I miss watching him play with the band.  We miss cooking in a well equipped kitchen and a hot bath, the convenience of Wifi, delivery services and….I think you get my drift.  And last but by no means least, we miss our friends and family and look forward to catching up with everyone soon!

What has really made this whole turn of events rather extraordinary is our buyers from Australia.  It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Karen and Peter, who were in the market for a catamaran along the lines of the ones they chartered in the past couple of years together.  Karen grew up boating with her family, much like I did, and Peter has been fishing these waters for years.  We believe that once they found india, the search was over, just as it was for us.  She's almost perfect after all and what's more, never officially made it to the market!  It's an amusing story but as we were testing the market in Fiji, Karen snatched her up after a night of research on the models and the rest is history.  Of course she needed to be delivered and it so happened that we had an application pending for a Cyclone Exemption for the Port of Brisbane, which is just down the road from their residence on the Gold Coast.  We just needed completion and approval and a good weather window away from any impending storms and we could be on our way!  After two months of video chats, emails and phone calls and no small amount of paperwork where David sprinkled his executive magic on process after process involving everything from Customs/Immigration, Quarantine and Biosecurity, to Import and Sale, we were finally able to meet Karen and Peter in person.  We soon organized a trip down the coast together to help bring india to her new home at a swanky marina.  This gave us a couple of days to introduce and operate all the equipment onboard and impart as much wisdom as we could to the new owners.    

Knowing that David and I have never spent time in Australia, Karen and Peter have been amazing hosts beginning the very first day of our arrival by standing across the Brisbane River holding an Australian Flag to welcome us and get a first peak at their new catamaran!  They were extremely flexible and understanding of our needs and emotions as we quarantined and extracted our belongings from the boat while the legalities were finalized.  They have since been exceedingly gracious and have even provided us a bungalow and vehicle for our disposal while here.  More importantly their companionship has been comfortable and enjoyable while they, in turn, have passed on their local knowledge and suggestions for our tour of Queensland. I honestly don't know how this transition could have been any smoother.  Karen and Peter have been reading our blogs from the beginning, as well as some of their friends and family, so india (and we, by extension) already had an Australian fan base who were invested and a following before we arrived.  India will be loved and cherished by many here in Australia while she spends the next couple of years cruising up and down the magnificent coasts.  And who knows?  Maybe she will get back to Fiji and continue to playgrounds further afield in a new POST Covid reality.

I do not want to imply that ending our time with india is not a sad parting.  It is.  We are proud of her and the work we have done to upgrade her functionality and appearance.  We are happy she has a new home and will be cared for in great style.  But we will miss her and compose ourselves with the distraction of touring Australia and thinking of our future and not dwelling on the past.  We will miss all the thrill of sailing her in high winds and big seas, the exotic places she takes us in the cool clear waters of the tropics, and the many friends we've made because of her.  Fortunately, we have kept great records of the many incredible adventures in our blogs, posts, photos and memories which we can revisit anytime we feel the need for an escape.

Speaking of which, we will continue to post on the Cat india Facebook Page until we leave Australia as part of the journey and I will write an epilogue.  We knew that this adventure would come to an end some time......but not...just...yet.