What is an idea? They are random thoughts that run through your head at will. Some are just thoughts; they flow out just as quickly as they appeared. But the ones that stick around and generate questions and what if’s are in a whole new ballpark. Those ideas ruminate around in your head. They are there when you go to sleep and they are there when you wake up. It’s those ideas that can become realities.
I’ve always loved white sand beaches and warm tropical waters. My vacations always centered around places with those criteria. I also loved to scuba dive, so of course those two things went hand in hand. I never really thought about sailing or sailboats. Growing up as a kid, my parents would take us on vacation to the coast and we would go on day fishing charters in the ocean. Those were some of my fondest memories. We also had a small motor boat that we would do lake fishing as well. So being on the water as an adult was not a foreign idea.
Fast forward, I met Brian, who also loved to scuba dive and like me preferred the warm waters. We had tons in common it was scary. We were both born on the 23rd but in different months, and our middle names were very close – he is a Carl and I’m a Carol. Our first names both start with “Br”. I could go on but hey isn’t this about how the idea was born?
Fast forward again, we get married and start living life together. We would usually take two vacays a year and always try to go to an island we haven’t been to. Our goal being to see all the Caribbean islands. I’m not sure which one it was but we were sitting having dinner and looking out at the sailboats on the water and we talked about how amazing it would be to travel from island to island that way. That was pretty much it, as we both thought a boat like that would be way out of our budget. We went back to our lives and never really gave it another thought. Most likely because we were several years away from retirement to give it any serious thought.
Brian had mentioned he wanted to learn to sail at one point so as a gift later I bought him the ASA 101 learn to sail book. It sat on the shelf patiently waiting to inspire ones dreams. Work was all consuming though, so it gathered dust bunnies with all the other books.
Another passion of ours was astronomy and looking at the stars. For one birthday Brian bought me a telescope which I loved. One afternoon I think I was googling some star and this blog post of Starry Horizons pops up. A couple sailing around the world on a Fountaine Pajot catamaran. So I googled their boat to see how much they cost, and it was a lot less than either one of us had expected. That night I showed the blog and the boat and ads for boats to Brian and well it was then that the idea became all consuming. From there we went to the big Miami Boat Show to look at all the different brands of production catamarans. We both quickly had our favorite pick. We both loved the Leopard hands down. The hunt was on.
We decided we needed a broker, so we called one up. Every time a new boat listing appeared, our broker told us it was already sold. We quickly discovered the pattern. All the boats we were in the market for were sold before listing. Realizing that, we needed to go to the source (who also happened to be fantastic). It happened pretty quickly after that. We were informed the next boat would be ours. It was a 2017 Leopard 48 that was practically new. The owners sailed to the Bahamas and didn’t like the experience. Their loss, our gain. I was working at the time in a busy hospital and could not just fly to Ft Lauderdale to see the boat. Brian had much more flexibility and therefore went to do all the buying, sea trial, and storing her on the hard stuff. I had a year to go until retirement so I couldn’t leave for Florida until then. And that is how the idea became a reality. I guess you might say the telescope got us here.
