Step 3... Where are we gonna put this thing?

Last weekend, Andy and I were lucky enough to have the weekend off. We're also lucky enough to have some pretty sweet connections in Duluth. A good friend of ours from the Twin Cities named Sarah Gooder (aka, The Goods) has an uncle who owns a marina up there. She was nice enough to take us to Duluth and introduce Andy and I to "Uncle Bill". Talk about a great guy! Unfortunately his marina is not deep enough for YOLO, she's a bit of a fat bottom girl. That sure didn't stop him from helping us out! Uncle bill took the 3 of us ALL OVER duluth checking out potential places for our boat this summer! He knew everybody! And when it was all said and done, him and his wife, "aunt katie", took US out to lunch! How backwards is that? Uncle Bill knew his stuff and was more than happy to help. I can't wait to take him out on YOLO as soon as she's in Duluth this summer!

Step 2... Finding the right boat

God I hope the boat in that picture above becomes ours. She's perfect! Pretty sure I'm in love. Time will tell, however. Right now we are desperately trying to make her ours. She's currently under the reign of another lover who we are trying to enter into a deal with. Although we already have a legal purchase agreement signed, we still have a long ways to go before we can call her ours.

April 6th will be the next big step forward. We hired a professional to go over her with a fine toothed comb to make sure she's as clean and true as she looks. We should have the results by the end of next week.

If all goes well, we will move to a sea trial to be conducted sometime towards the end of April whenever we can simultaneously duck out of work for a few days. It will be immediately after the successful sea trial that we will officially own the boat! We're splitting ownership 50/50.

All we need to do after that is sail her home. (Duluth... for now). For this, we have 2 weeks vacation in the 2nd half of May to try our luck with the greatest of the great lakes. That will be a whole new set of postings... stay tuned and wish us luck!!!

Step 1: financing

This expedition wouldn't be cheap; the saving had to begin immediately. Lance became the ships treasurer and created a comprehensive budget. He is really good with managing money and with Microsoft Excel which I am grateful for, because those are 2 of my weaknesses. We would need 18 months to save the cash required to purchase the ideal sailboat, outfit it for cruising, buy spare parts, and fatten our bank accounts enough to live off for 6 months. Our dream is turning into a reality and now we find it hard to think about anything else!