We always had an interest in boats even before we got married. We often spent our holidays in Spain, where we would watch the boats coming and going from the jetty. Our first-ever boat was a Regal 1800, a speedboat, a bow rider. We used to keep it at Brighton Marina.
This involved a commute and a hotel stay from our home in Harrow. We loved the boat, but with a speedboat, you are kind of limited. Yes, you can go fast, you can bob about having a picnic and so on, but you could never really go far, and it guzzled the fuel. Not our boat, but the video below is of the same boat.
At the Southampton Boat Show in 2000, we spotted a cute little 21-foot sailboat at the entrance to the show. We loved it, we loved it so much that we traded in the speedboat and with some extra pennies, we bought our first sailboat. A Pippin 20. She was fabulous.
A double-sized bed in the bow, two cushion benches, a tiny galley in the middle and a good-sized cockpit. Again, not our boat, the video below is of the Pippin 20. She was a great little boat.
Staying on a sailboat changed things for us a lot. We could go away to other places along the coast for overnight stays, and we could sleep on her and cook on her. She was good fun until one day, during a visit to Eastbourne Marina, we were berthed next to a Bavaria 32 sailboat, which was a boat that we really dreamed of having, but financially it was out of reach. She was a big, beautiful boat. Take a look inside another Bavaria 32 in this video.
At the next Southampton Boat Show, we looked at all the Bavaria boats. There is something very evocative about walking around a brand new boat, the smell, the shiny GRP, the layout…, your imagination starts to run away with you. We stood on the bow of a 32-foot Bavaria sailboat, the same one next to us in Brighton, when Del suddenly said, “I’ve got a great idea…“
We took the plunge and, after a test sail, placed an order for a brand new Bavaria 32 sailboat (10 and a bit metres). The plan was to give up our very good jobs for a year, sell the house we had in Harrow, bank the money, and after a year on a boat, we would sell the boat and buy a cheap house in the hills of a Spanish town. Many thought we were mad, stupid, insane or all of the above. Some thought it was an opportunity not to miss.
The order for the boat was placed in September 2002, and we set a date of May 2003 for our adventure to start in the south of France, and sail the Med for a full year. In that time between the order and the delivery, we had to sell the house, quit our jobs and prepare for a life together living on a boat. The name of our new boat was STARGAZER, named after the boats that preceded her.
During our time on the boat, H kept a daily diary of our life at sea. For an adventure like this, you can’t just leave it to memory; you have to write it down, and she did. She didn’t do it every day because some days nothing really happened, nothing worth writing about anyway. Over the years, the mainly pencil-written diaries have started to fade, so we thought it would be wise to get them in a digital format before the writing on the page and the memories in the brain start to fade.
Join us on our journey as we sell up, give up and set up on a 10m boat. The plan didn’t really go as we intended, as you will find out. Our Journey starts in January 2003, the boat was ordered in September 2002, and delivery will be in the south of France at Port Napoleon on Tuesday, 13th May 2003. While all this was going on, we also had to manage a flat in Tenerife that we would rent out as well as stay.
Now grab a drink and click here to follow our life-changing journey.
Del & H x
Welcome back, we get to spend summer with you, see you soon xx