Pretty Okay

Marine surveyors are a busy lot! After Peter gave us the timeline of vessel accept/reject date and closing, we had to quickly search for and book a marine surveyor who could survey our boat in North Carolina sometime within a 2 week period. After a handful of phone calls, we finally found someone who could do it on April 6th. Ben booked his flight to go out on the 5th and return on the 7th.

Waking up on the 6th was just like waking up Christmas morning. We couldn’t wait to hear (anything!) from Ben. Knowing he was busy, and hoping he was taking a zillion photos and videos, I didn’t call or text him and waited patiently for him to call me. At 0945, while I was teaching my online class, I got an incoming video call from him. I quickly got the kids to work and muted myself on our Meet. When I answered, I saw him on the deck of our boat cruising along. I started envisioning myself and the kids alongside him on our journey south and a huge smile appeared on my face. Naturally, I asked how it was going. His reply, “Pretty okay.” 

“What do you mean pretty okay?” I cautiously asked. 

“I’ll tell you more later. I’ve got to go.”

Needless to say, I was upset, curious, and frustrated that he’d call me just to tell me things were “pretty okay” and then leave me hanging. Don’t worry. He called me back. FOUR HOURS LATER.

Apparently “pretty okay” meant there was black smoke coming from one of the engines and they thought it could easily be fixed, but it also meant that the sea trial would not be happening while Ben was there. Besides the smoke, there were a ton of other things that the surveyor found, bringing his estimated value of the boat to $35,000 less than what we offered. He even suggested we walk away. “Pretty okay” it turns out, is not actually okay.

I felt like someone died. My daydreams for the past few weeks had been based on this boat, this summer. Ben reassured me that we would still go through with the sale of the boat and that the surveyor (who he got to know and trusted) would be there for the sea trial reporting anything we need to know about our boat. Wearily, we trudged forward and waited for updates.

The diver removed the propeller, repaired it, and returned it to its home underwater. When they tested the boat again, the black smoke was still there. Ben said he thought it was the fuel injector from the start. The next step is to have Yanmar take a look at the engine. An update of our contract and timelines was necessary, moving the vessel accept/reject date to June 1 and our closing to June 6th- the day we planned to leave Colorado to begin our voyage to the boat, which no longer would be moved to Florida ahead of time by Ben and me, with some friends. This now meant we’d drive to North Carolina and get on the boat there as a family to take it to Florida to kickoff our catamaran life.