She's ours

Just a quick note to share the news that we took possession of Taiko on Saturday.  In the picture the seller (Paul) and I are shaking hands on the deal during the "off-shore delivery" - our offer required that Paul had to deliver the boat to us outside of California so that the sale would not incur California sales tax - which is 9% in the county where the boat was docked!  So Paul hired someone with a Coast Guard six-pack license to drive the boat beyond the three-mile line which demarcates state waters.  Once there we signed all the final papers and took a picture of the GPS to document our location and I made first "functional use" of the boat outside of California waters by sailing around for a couple of hours before we drove back through the Golden Gate.  Paul is a Kiwi, and he was very aware of the farcical, only-in-America side of the whole thing.  The farce was pretty apparent to me as well, but I was mostly nervous that I would screw up on some trifling little legal detail.  But it all went fine.

It's hard now to remember just how nervous I was the night before we took possession - I literally haven't been so nervous since the day that Alisa and I were married.  But as soon as she was ours, all the nerves went away.  We've now made our choice and we'll be happy to live with it.  And, improbably enough, our full year of searching is suddenly over.  I love the feeling of living aboard again, even if it is only at a marina dock.  Alisa and the boys arrive Wednesday morning.

The picture below was taken much too late last night, as I was cleaning the bilges and taking stock of everything aboard.  Paul kindly left some tools and other useful items aboard (but, mate, I noticed that you kept the oil lamps!).  So now our big push to get the boat ready to cross the Pacific begins - more details on the boat, and the preparations, to follow soon.