Why are we Selling the Boat (What Happened?)
Selling the boat was a decision, which shocked many of our readers. We owe you an explanation.
Naturally, we have family discussions aboard, which I do not share on the blog. Yet, we were headed towards Grenada and beyond!
So what happened?
Why are we selling?
The “beyond“ tipped the scale for our cruising family, together with a family business idea, which needed an investment that the sale of the boat, in the current market, would provide.
The captain, Sophie and Bobby were hoping to sail around the world and cross the Pacific next season. Joey and I, however, were perfectly happy to sail the Caribbean and Central America only.
We all decided that crossing an ocean must be agreed upon by everyone in the family, and so we are selling the boat, and starting a family business in Bulgaria. Once the right time has come, I will write a post about our future endeavors.
What about the blog and the videos?
It is my plan to continue this blog, because I will finally have time to look back and see our adventure with an outsider’s eyes, and change things, so that we can be more useful to other people dreaming similar dreams.
So keep those questions coming – what would you like to see on our blog, what questions do you want answered?
As far as our videos – I have plenty of material on my phone to complete another season of at least 5-6 YouTube Videos. Selling the boat itself might remain as an episode, to help others down the road.
Moving to a different country and trying to start a family business, while dealing with a broken house might just be entertaining enough to inspire another season of videos!
Take a look at that gem of ours, in Bulgaria, in our video!
What are we doing, while waiting for the boat to sell?
Selling the boat is not an instant event, even in this crazy market of today’s. Here is what we have been up to, while waiting for the boat to sell.
Remember, we are still in a beautiful place, even if not moving at the moment.
Boat Business:
We posted the boat on several Facebook groups and they have been generating quite a lot of questions and comments. Since all of our potential buyers are from the US and Europe, arriving to see the boat is not as easy, as if we had it listed in Florida, for example.
We lost a bit of time at the beginning, because I joined a small, private catamaran-sale Facebook group without looking at the number of members…
A big mistake!
A week later, wondering why we had not received more inquiries, I discovered that the two groups we should have joined, had very similar names with the much smaller group I did join!
Anyway, the mistake has been fixed and we are now seeing lots of interest in our listing and video tour, from both groups, as well as a third large one!
Since we are showing existing boat projects in our video tour, we may have lost a couple of buyers, who are after the “perfect” boat, but we sleep well at night. We have been approached by strangers who shared purchasing “perfect” boats only to find concealed, expensive problems afterwards.
Our boating community is still full of honest people ready to help each other on the water, it is unfortunate that a few are putting their wallets before their integrity.
Business business:
We are not ready to share our family business plans just yet, but since it can take a while to take off, we are brainstorming additional income ideas. We do have a few in mind, focusing on telecommuting options, because we would like to do some European and Asian land travel.
Cheaply, of course, so keep an eye for ideas and posts on those possible adventures and the funny stories, coming up, with us being complete novices in land travel…
This train route of five hours has been voted one of the 10 best rural train routes in Europe, by the Guardian.
It was also featured in a NY Times article!
Its first/last stop is in my village, in Bulgaria!
I cannot wait for land travel!
I have been busy teaching myself all kinds of SEO acrobatics, improving the blog and updating it. In the future, I will be including a few more “How to” useful posts, along with our story posts. I am not letting go of this baby just yet!
Boring business, aka school!
The initial hype and stress around listing the boat, cleaning the boat, taking pictures of the boat, and so on, put our school on the back burner for a little while. Now that we have calmed down a bit, the kids have resumed normal school activities.
Being where we are, we are also incorporating daily swimming into the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean!
Fun business
We also have boat friends here, in St. Thomas, who are spending a few months working, before continuing to Grenada. The kids have other kids to hang out with, swim, watch movies and buy over-priced milk shakes ashore…
We even organized an Easter Egg Hunt together, because, guess what – they are an Eastern Orthodox family from Florida! What are the odds!
Life business:
Staying in one spot for longer than a couple of weeks, while selling the boat, does take a toll on us. We love to be on the move! Selling the boat in St. Thomas, however, would be easier, because of many convenient flights to the island, as well as US notaries available near-by. Our phone calls are also domestic, being in a US territory.
Life in St. Thomas has been great – it is clean enough to make water, we found a few great grocery stores and were able to visit almost every pretty anchorage on this island, as well as on St. John island. I will have at least one Destination post on St. Thomas and St. John!
Travel business
We have no idea when we will be able to fly to the US and then to Bulgaria, but it must be before the middle of August, since Joe needs to renew his Bulgarian residency.
With the boat still listed, we will need to start sailing south soon, towards Grenada, in order to be away from the hurricane zone in the Eastern Caribbean.
In true Graceful style – we will be somewhere, at some point. We will let you know once we get there!
What do we do now?
We are all a bit sad, excited, worried, pumped, a little stressed – in true Graceful fashion!
So, this post is also a prayer request – please, keep us in your prayers, as future land lubbers…
What if our family business fails? Well, we will worry about it then, but we will probably end up loosing a bunch of money, selling a bunch of belongings and buying a boat to fix and live on cheaply…
Uuuuppppsss, did not kow that our credentials appear as a comment, would you please remove our E-mail and phone number? Sorry, we are non digital people, facebook and whatsup free…., so we may appear a bit stupid……
Atmo and Petra,
Thank you for commenting! I deleted your previous comment, there was not way to just edit it.
Graceful is currently under contract, sale pending. I am sorry.
Your story sounds fascinating! I would love to connect and exchange sailing and land stories.
I see your email address below. Please, no need to apologize for not being digital enough; that adds little value to life, especially life of adventures and world exploration!
Good luck to you! I hope you find your next boat soon.
From the post I just saw on the boat for sale post, you will be heading to north to Beaufort! While there you can say hello to the Shipman’s – former members of St. Mary – and my cousin whose house isat the. End of Bay St., a short walk from the marina.
Anna, I will keep that in mind! At this time, we have seen sufficient interest to try and sell the boat in the USVI, but you never know! We love Beaufort, SC, such a beautiful town!