We spent this week finalizing paperwork to sell our Catalina 30 sailboat, Logos. We purchased Logos three years ago and have had many wonderful times on her, but a variety of life changes eventually intervened, and we ultimately made the difficult decision to sell. Barry really wanted to move aboard and cruise on her, but I was a bit too wishy-washy and wimpy to commit to that lifestyle, so we weren't sure that keeping her just as a weekender was going to be worth all the three-hour drives to the coast (which had gotten old), along with the carrying costs of boat ownership. The final tipping point was falling in love with Belize and recently deciding to purchase a condo there, leaving me without vacation time to both go to to the coast and on trips to Central America. And the money we would save by selling Logos (slip fees, boat insurance, and maintenance) would help defer some of the our travel costs.
So, with heavy hearts we signed Logos over to her new owner, who seems to love her just as much as we did. She was a fine boat, and the improvements we (especially Barry) made, made her an even better boat than when we purchased her.
Even though we ultimately lost money since we'd spent so much upgrading and refining her systems, the richness of life experiences we gained by owning her more than made up for any financial losses. She taught us much about sailing and about simplicity, about paring down our possessions to the most essential, and about what was most important to us in life -- living in sync with nature's rhythms, working together towards a common goal, reducing our carbon footprints, taking quiet time to reflect and observe the beauty in nature, and staying active outdoors.
We'll never forget the thrills of sailing her with just the right amount of wind, or the relaxing times we spent chilling in the cockpit with a simple dinner cooked in her galley and a glass of wine. Our experiences on her are documented in the "Sailing" links in the right-hand column of this blog.
