Experiencing “Island Time” in Canada – and not losing our s*** when it feels like everything is falling apart
It’s May 9, 2018 and we bought a boat!
Everything is amazing and we feel like a million bucks. A dream 10 years in the making is finally coming true.
Release the doves!
Fast forward to June 18, 2018 – I have worked a night shift and haven’t slept more than 3 hours in 36 hours…ah, shift work.
I’m a combination of caffeine and sass and trying to function as a mother, wife and human being – Oh, and that boat we bought – we don’t own it yet – in fact we are past our closing date (buying a boat – or at least the kind of mothership we bought, is similar to buying a house and requires steps to be filled out similar to a mortgage BUT, in Ontario we were very, very, very limited with the financing options and finding a boat mortgage, for a boat that will never be brought into the Country, left us with really only one option – more on that later)
So, we are past the closing date of finalizing our “mortgage”. In our minds, this means we have broken our contract and the Sellers could pull out of our agreement and that boat we “bought” would no longer be ours….
This is disastrous!
10 years of a dream down the toilet and back to square one. F**K.
So back in May 2018, we made a very concrete plan – buy the boat – own the boat – have a crew sail our boat from the BVI where it currently is docked to St Lucia. Mike and I would then fly to St Lucia and sail our boat a short passage, ourselves, from St Lucia to Grenada (approx 1-2 days) where we would haul the boat out of the water onto the hard and have it stored there for hurricane season.
A perfect plan to get our feet wet without getting in over our heads.
Our adventure would start sometime in late October. We like to plan. The plan was perfect.
WELL, I’m sitting on an airplane on June 20 – but Hark! we aren’t going to St Lucia as per our perfect plan. We are heading to the British Virgin Islands. Why you ask? Well, that’s where our boat is!
A bit of a background on our financing company.
To get a mortgage on a house can be difficult – to get a mortgage on a depreciating “asset” is even harder and then when you tell them you aren’t buying the boat in Canada they flat out say No. But our broker had a contact in Quebec that would be able to get us financing. Sweet!!
The perfect plan is coming together.
Now, a combination of miscommunication or should I say poor communication (did you know there are people in Quebec that speak zero English….makes me wish I paid more, if any, attention in French class) lead us to believe that financing was approved (it was) and we would take possession of the boat on June 11 – We thought this was the official closing date (for the record, June 11 was actually only a mutually agreed upon closing date if we could push the paperwork fast enough) and we would own a boat and our plan was still perfect.
We booked the crew to do the sail from BVI to St Lucia for a departure around June 15 and timing couldn’t be more perfect.
Well, hello June 11 – the day the s**t hit the fan.
The boat won’t be closing on June 11 – more paperwork needs to be signed and a notary needs to be involved to close the sale. Pardon?
A notary to close the sale. The sale was supposed to close today.
Ok, don’t panic.
Recheck paperwork and we find that our actual closing date is June 17. So we have time. No problem we are promised this will be sorted FOR SURE before June 17.
Like within 2 days.
Ok, perfect plan is still a plan and conceivable.
Welcome June 17 – it is going to be a great day! We are going to own a boat! No.
Nope. No, we aren’t. S**t hits the fan again ( I feel like it’s caked on the fan now…)
Today is the official closing date – Money to pay the sellers is in “the cloud”.
Oh and can take 48 hours to float back to earth.
So now we are looking at taking ownership June 19!
WELL, that isn’t going to work because the guys that are going to sail our boat to St Lucia needed to leave at the very latest June 18 due to scheduling conflicts. They also needed us to own the boat to depart. They can’t do the boat delivery now.
This is where the caffeine and sass realllly kicked in – and not to mention Mike, poor Mike – he is the middleman in all this – phone calls, emails written in English and google translated into French, talking to the Notary, the financing company, our broker, the guys that were going to do the boat delivery and feeling defeated and that the sale of the boat wasn’t going to go through. He actually told me that, ‘this has broken me,’ and I could hear it in his voice. He was at rock bottom…where the shit has buried him.
And then it hit us. Not the shit from the fan or the grave. The plan.
This is supposed to happen this way. Not to get sappy or anything but we are firm believers (me, more so) that things happen for a reason.
Here is the reason.
1) We are going to live on a boat. We are starting a new way of life, a new way of thinking and need to become a little less uptight and go with the flow….”island time”
2) We like to plan. Sailing is dependent on weather, something we have no control over. So we can plan to our hearts content, but we HAVE to be able to adapt to our situation. And by adapt, I mean, accept. We can’t lose our sh*t everytime something doesn’t work out.
3) The big one here is that we are meant to do this passage from BVI to Grenada. Just Mike and I, like back in the days of our pre-kids travel adventures. A time to learn the boat inside and out, have fun, problem solve, enjoy each others company as two parents sans kids because starting October it will be 365 days with the kids. Starting October – we will be all hands on deck!
Now, the thought of us not taking possession of the boat was a true fear – and we do blame this on the company that I will not disclose (if you want to feel like your dreams will be crushed, send me a message and I can give you details on the company)
But everything has worked out in the end.
In hindsight (isn’t hindsight great….) We worried and cursed and stressed to the max for a week. BUT….it worked out.
It’s hard to say that if this hadn’t worked out and we lost the sale then it was “meant to be”…..so, for now, we are looking on the positive side.
We took official possession of the boat on….actually, I’m not even sure if that paperwork has gone through…but as of June 19, the Sellers received their money. To the Sellers that have been VERY considerate throughout this process, we thank you! Did I mention that the Sellers were Canadian… Canadians are a great breed of humans.
I told Mike I wouldn’t do blog posts cause I don’t like to write. But I had sooooo much on my mind – and lots of caffeine ( and now Jack Daniels) flowing through the veins I thought what else can I do on this flight from Miami to St Thomas, USVI (We take a cool ferry from St Thomas into Tortola, BVI). So this is my first and possibly my last blog post hahaha
Well, that’s it – so far a happy ending to the beginning of an amazing journey. Some life lessons and compromises learned along the way…..we just need our 250lbs of luggage to arrive at our destination and we are gravy!
We are Mike, Andrea, Arya and Isla of BayerFoot Travels – and we own a boat!
