We’re Currently Boatless.
For the moment we don’t even own a kayak. It still feels a little weird. Our cruising boats are listed in order from most to least recent.
S/V Gallivant under sail on the Grand Bahamas Banks to Nassau.
Photo courtesy Christine of s/v Scintilla.
SOLD: S/V Gallivant under sail on the Grand Bahamas Banks to Nassau.
Our one-minute sales video tour of s/v Gallivant.
After three months in Florida, we found and completed the purchase for our current sailboat, a Hirsch Gulfstar 45. We named her s/v Gallivant, which means traveling for pleasure. We bought a boat where our friends and family could join us, and close their door to their own stateroom at night—though they never did.
We planned to take Gallivant to return to the West Indies. First, we spent the 2021 season in the Bahamas, with plans to travel the eastern US seaboard that summer. Our sweetest sail was out of St. Augustine, Florida.
Our surveyor described her as “elegant.” We agreed.
Aft stateroom
Settee area, though sans kitty toys as Don and Maryann’s kitty Kai is enjoying his new boat. Photo courtesy Ceal Potts, our inspector, and friend.
Our Gulfstar 45 was still under the ownership of friends Don and Maryann, and called Straight from the Heart. Photo courtesy Maryann Timon as Heart was leaving Jacksonville Florida for its final pre-sale haul-out inspection.
Why did we sell Gallivant? After mostly living aboard and long-term cruising since 2012, our test drive to the Bahamas made us realize we just don’t like doing passages anymore. We’re ready to stop being nomads, at least for a while, though we do see a trailer-able boat we can take out for weekends or longer in our future.
Serendipity: Puget Trawler—Sold!
There is an amazing story behind the boat we came to call home after selling our sailboat in Australia. Die-hard sailors would accuse of us “going to the dark side” by switching from a sailboat to a powerboat. But there’s a reason why we named her Serendipity. You can read the story about how she came to us here. If you had any doubts, the story will reinforce your belief in humanity and kindness. We seriously considered trucking Serendipity to the midwest, then doing the loop. Rather than the most reasonable from a reputable shipper sunk cost of $14K if we cut the flybridge off, we decided to sell and buy a sailboat. The furthest we could’ve gone with Serendipity was the Bahamas, and we’d love to return to the West Indies. We sold her to someone who we believed would love her as much as we did.
Journey: Pearson 365 Ketch – Sold!
Pearson 365 ketch sailboat – cruising destinations, St. Barts Journey sailing into Gustavia, St. Barts, the Caribbean, January 2013. Eventually we’ll get one with our sails up. Thanks to Alice Kilgo of Ocean Star for taking this photo.
The perfect size:
- drinks for 6
- dinner for 4
- sleeps 2
Bottom line?
- 36 1/2′ long
- 11 1/4′ wide
- about 150 square feet of living space inside
January 2017 – Journey’s Sale
After ~19,000 miles and 4 1/2 years together, was time to bid Journey a fond goodbye. Our goal was to sail from the US to Australia, with lots of stops in tropical paradise along the way. We did. We listed Journey for sale in the Sydney Australia area. She was in sound condition, though we’re prettied her up for sale as her curb appeal definitely needed some improvement. She sold within two weeks of posting. Her current owners knew a lot about her from following Wayne’s posts on the Pearson forum and this blog (which included a bit of a sales negotiation challenge as Wayne posted a low for-sale-by-owner price in New Caledonia before we brought Journey to Australia, where we undertook the extensive expenses and labor a broker sale there required). We appreciated the excellent hand-off we got from Journey’s former owner, and plan to pay it forward. As with Journey’s prior owners, we offered a post-sale run-through aboard. We still honor a standing offer to answer any questions Journey’s current owners have for us about Journey. We would love to hear how Journey is enjoying some excellent new adventures with her current owners.
This Blog, Post s/v Journey (continues)
Recently this blog moved platforms from Blogger to WordPress after a relatively long hiatus with little or no posting. There are likely to be some hiccups due to the transition.
We are done with distant cruising on our boat(s). However, this blog continues to live on as there is much excellent material I never got around to posting (which I do, periodically). After we sold s/v Journey, we continued to explore, from our nomadic adventure around Australia living out of a Land Cruiser, to the continuing culture shock upon our return to the USA, to the new-to-us boat we are once again about to call home (as of June 2019).
Portions of this blog may find their way into a sailing memoir, though another writing project precedes that.
The Story of Our s/v Journey Purchase
Choose… wisely
Journey sailing into Abacos, BAHAMAS. Thanks to Ann Gates, formerly of Krazy Lady for the photo.
After some local porthole peeking forays, over a year of international internet “window shopping”, with 30 “boat bucks” (1 boat buck = $1,000 USD) in recently added important extras, a Yachtworld ad prompted me to make my first serious offer. I did not anticipate the boat of my choice would take a two-day flight to St. Lucia, or that I’d be making the final purchase decision on it without the assistance of a surveyor or my wife. For those for whom size matters, or want to peek under the hood Click here for a Quick Specs Summary
Signed, sealed but not quite delivered Over a year of shopping, 2 weeks of sweating over whether to buy this particular boat, 30 days from making our initial offer (21 March 2012), 27 days after being told someone else was getting it, 23 days after re-iterating our offer, a redeye followed by a 4 hour layover, another 12 hour flight and a 4 hour drive to see it, 2 days on it including an overnight outing, Journey was ours. Nearly 4200 miles from home, will she be safe for the 5 months until we see her? We won’t know until we’re there. Sails not yet up, and lots more clean-up to do, but… Journey is here, healthy, safe and sound in sunny St. Lucia, Rodney Bay. For all that, and more, we are happy!
Sails not yet up, and lots more clean-up to do, but… Journey is here, healthy, safe and sound in sunny St. Lucia, Rodney Bay. For all that, and more, we are happy!
Update: Safe & Sound Yes, thanks to the excellent folks at IGY Rodney Bay Marina’s care, and that St. Lucia is a “hurricane hole” (safe place), our boat was ready and waiting for us. Best of all, when the time came to hoist her onto dry land to clean and re-do her hull anti-fouling paint, (click here, and here and here if you’d like to learn more about “Life on the Hard”) there was nary a blister on this robust and well-cared for ~35 year old boat. About the only issue issue we saw was a cracked plastic collar around the propeller, a common enough issue the manufacturer is replacing it with a steel part. We’ll replace ours with the updated part, but in the meantime, it’s not a major concern. Inside Views of Journey For Sale Listing (the original YachtWorld posting no longer exists; thus this is our listing with DBY in Australia posted January 2017) Or Check out these posts Intruder Aboard! (one of our few scary moments on Journey) Ned’s Neato Additions Other Pearson 365 Sailboats We’ve met some fantastic other Pearson owners, mostly through the very active Pearson Forum (which has saved our bacon a number of times). Here’s a little about them and their boats Dirk of Evening Ebb (link) Allen & Michelle of Incommunicado (link) Lonnie & Bona of Good News (link) 
We’d Love to Hear from You Got a question or want see more? Drop us a line at svJourney365 at gmail dot com or dana.greyson gmail dot com (humans can figure this out, hopefully spammers cannot) and tell us what you’d like to see or hear.
