A friend pointed out that my last post seemed like we were in the keys last week ;-)
All of these fun things were actually happening end of January/beginning of February - it has just been a whirlwind since then and I didn't sit down and write until now!
So, with that said, here is the next chapter! Hope you enjoy!
It was finally time to have the discussions and make the big decision - was the Dean the right next step for us.
Going into it, we knew it had a few projects. There were some broken covers to holds in the boat, so we'd have to do some replacement and cleaning. There was some peeling paint on the tops of the hulls and starting to go down the side, so we would probably have to paint it. We knew the air conditioners in both hulls were broken and would need to be replaced. And of course, you expect a survey to turn up some things and be the start of your honey-do list for a new boat.
During the survey, we found out that most of the handles for the thru-hulls were broken off and had (obviously) not been exercised in a long time. We found live electrical wires floating in the engine compartment, along with several other electrical issues. We found both engines leaking diesel fuel and one of the mounts was failing, along with some other minor things. We found rot under one of the berths that would need to be replaced. We found out the interior shower and bilge were not working - they showered in the cockpit. There was a smallish area in the cockpit that had started de-laminating. And among other things - we found that the whole boat needed to be hauled out and painted because the peeling we saw went all the way down to the waterline and there was moisture behind it.
Overall, nothing that couldn't be handled, but did it suit our needs?
Our goal was to be able to move onto the boat and we had already given up our apartment. The work required an extended time for a haul out . We talked about options with Daryl, finding a place that would let us live on while working on it, taking it abroad, hiring out the work - but unfortunately, we needed a place to live and we didn't really want to move the Lola Jo to another state, much less another country. I was still looking for work, and didn't want to limit my options by being out of the country, and since I wasn't working, we couldn't afford to pay people to do the work.
Ultimately, we decided no...
We hope the boat makes someone else very happy, but given our current life situation, it was not the boat for us - we needed something that was at least ready for us to move onto and didn't need an extended haul out.
Unfortunately, we also decided that in this price range, we probably were not going to find what we were looking for. So now we had a bigger decision - what is the next step?
I definitely needed to find steady work so we could put ourselves into a higher price range, but we realized that both Michael and I trying to work on the Lola Jo was going to be a problem. The boat had room for one to work at the nav station, and one person COULD work at the settee - but since that was also Michael's berth, it was not easy or convenient. We were going to need to find someplace to live while we saved some money to put ourselves in the next price bracket....
Until next time friends, stay derpy ;-p
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