VERY good shopping day!

Today we had our sights set on a Beneteau 40 in Semiahmoo (darn near in Canada!). This boat edged out the Hunter 40 from yesterday. While it still only had 2 cabins, it had lots of cruising extras like solar panels and a water maker, as well as a good deal of storage. The salon and galley were great, too. We might have a winner! She was listed a little over budget, but the potential to have an accepted offer within budget was definitely there. While we were up there we also got onto a 38’ O’Day. That one had 3 cabins (bonus!) and was cheap (another bonus!), but that was about it. The Beneteau 40 was still tops.

Then we got a little crazy. It was around noon when we finished up in Semiahmoo and we were soooo close to Canada (and had our passports on us!) that we decided to see if we’d be able to get on the Beneteau 393. It was in Vancouver and we kept coming back to the unique layout it had—3 cabins nicely tucked in 39’. The call came through and we bolted for the border. Talk about making it a tough day! The kids were sick of being in the car, hungry, cranky, you name it, but we made it. Scott at Westerly Yachts greeted us and didn’t seem the least bit irked by our last-minute showing. He took us down to the immaculate boat, Typhoon.

An engineer and some deckhands were just coming off and immediately gave us a little education on her. Oh, and Katreina immediately took to Brad, interrupting us so she could shake his hand and say hi…little flirt. We easily got the whole crew on via the step-through stern and started checking her out. Wow. This boat was the cleanest we’d been on yet and everything looked almost new. I went down below and instantly fell in love with the layout. The 3 staterooms really were perfect and I loved the “master suite.” I preferred the D-shaped settee to the port/starboard benches we’d seen on other boats and while the galley was small, I could see us all sitting together in the salon. She had some mechanical perks, too—roller furling Genoa, in-mast main, all lines beautifully led aft and covered on deck, autopilot…uh oh, falling in love. I also found comfort in the fact that it was a fairly new boat, a 2006, and the systems all seemed to be in perfect working order. Ugh, really in love.

We left Vancouver a little torn. THIS was the best boat we’d seen, but it was over our budget and unfortunately it was pretty fairly priced (unlike some of the other neglected boats we’d seen). The drive was a little silent. The kids were just wiped and I think Frank and I were doing some serious number crunching and soul searching. I could absolutely see us being on that boat in 10 years. Everyone could have their own space onboard, it was so new, and it was built well. I called my parents to tell them all about it as soon as we got back to the US. I had done exactly what you’re not supposed to do when making a big purchase—looked over budget and got emotionally attached. Now what?