Best to back up a bit first… With Strikhedonia in Puerto Vallarta and a delivery captain hired it was a waiting game for good weather and delivery crew availability. A month rolls by, no set date. A second month rolls by, still no set date and talk of other deliveries being ahead of Strikhedonia. Huh?!?! So I began the search for a new delivery captain. I found an experience captain from San Diego and he had a Mexican woman who he handled deliveries with. Perfect! I was able to get my insurance to add him to the policy for the delivery and then it was time to look for a weather window.
Finally things looked good and flights from Tijuana to Puerto Vallarta were arranged and the crew was on the way. With the boat ready to go, they literally jumped on board, reviewed everything, checked out with the port captain, and headed to sea. The roughest passage was to Cabo but Strikhedonia handled it with no issues. Then the next hop was up to Turtle bay, this weather held out for an easy motor north and then tucked into the anchorage. I got a message they were spending a few days in Turtle bay, which surprised me because the weather looked great, but I later learned it because the captain’s crew lives in Turtle bay so they were going to relax at her house and surf. But someone called the police and they were promptly told they could not be ashore due to Covid. So back to sea they went and finished off the delivery to Ensenada.
For a few months I had been calling all the marinas in San Diego looking for a slip to no avail. Looked like Strikhedonia would be hanging out in Ensenada for a bit. No biggie, I like it there. I drove down to Ensenada arriving a few hours after Strikhedonia pulled into her slip. Well actually an end-tie, so I had to squeeze her in a tight alleyway and into her permanent slip myself. I spent a couple days off loading my stuff, cleaning, and repairing a couple things that broke on the passage. All in all, she fared the trip very well. And with that I drove back into the US.
Literally 24 hour hours after I returned to my parents in Las Vegas, I got a call that a slip was available for me in San Diego. Ugh, I was just there an could have easily stuck around and made the trip. I tried talking my wife into dropping me off in Ensenada and then driving back into the US but she was having none of it, so I called the delivery captain and asked if he could bring it the last leg to San Diego. He was game and it worked out well for me, as it took him twelve hours to check out of the country and close the TIP. Ugh
That was the middle of June and a month later I flew to San Diego to finish the prep work to sell Strikhedonia. Thankfully my friend Jack was willing to come and lend a hand. Oh how did I end up needing his help. It was mostly a clean, polish, spiff up job but we did have to repair the stackpack (a fellow cruiser had a Sail-rite helped with that one), fix one of the side sunshades, and a couple other minor things. Plus a lot of metal polishing…
I had three people who had expressed an interest, including Alison and Allan who took a look down in Barra. In order to get an idea on worth, I had Curt from West Coast Multi-hulls (who was my original broker) stop by and take a look. He gave me a number and explained he had multiple buyers looking for a catamaran. I told him about the people I was talking to and that if it didn’t work out with them I’d hire him to sell my boat.
I (and Jack) needed one last sail on Strikhedonia so after our work was done we sailed up to Mission bay for a few days. We actually sailed the entire way until about five miles out when the wind just completely died. Anchor set, I gave Allan and Alison a call and told them about the valuation and that if they were interested I’d split the commission cost with them (saving me $15k and saving them $15k). A tentative deal was struck and a plan for them to drive down for a seatrial.
The next day we took them out and had a perfect 15 knot onshore breeze which let us have a fun sporty sail. Convinced that everything was as advertised, we headed back into Mission bay to sign some paperwork. Whew, I was so happy that they would be the buyers because they are awesome people plus we had so much in common. They headed to a hotel to celebrate while Jack and I celebrated aboard. After another relaxing day, we pulled up the anchor and made the sail back to our slip at Marina Cortez. I’ll admit I was quite sad, Strikhedonia had been the perfect boat for me, taken such care of me in rough weather, and I really had trouble saying goodbye. But it had to be done. The end of one chapter and the start of another one…
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