The Back Story

March 27, 2017

Ceilydh is for sale !



Ceilydh is a well equipped and affordably priced 40 foot cruising catamaran. She's in great condition and is ready to help you to fulfill your sailing dreams. Asking price: 

$108,000 USD. 


Lots more photos and details here: http://ceilydh.wixsite.com/cat4sale

 After a successful 8 year, 31 country circumnavigation our growing teenage daughter is ready to finish high school on land. Built in Canada in 1987, the hull and deck are made with Klegecell PVC foam core and laminated with biaxial stitched/mat fiberglass. The vessel was extensively refitted and had a diesel engine and bridgedeck cabin and cockpit constructed from vacuum bagged Corecell foam core, triaxial stitched fiberglass, and epoxy resin. This was added in 2008.

Major equipment:  Yanmar 3GM30F 27 HP diesel in port hull, Tohtatsu 6 HP Sailpro (manoeuvring thruster motor) stbd hull. Quick Windlass, 45 Manson Boss anchor, A130 Spade Anchor, FX37 Fortress anchor. 550 watts solar panels. All self tailing winches. Spectra 16 GPH watermaker. Whirlpool gas instant water heater. Propane BBQ. Diesel heater. Iridium Go satphone/internet device. JRC radar. Two autopilots. 10’ RIB with 15 HP Yamaha outboard. Main, genoa, staysail, spinnaker. Harken furlers for genoa and staysail.

Located in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico we'd like to sell her as an offshore purchase (just outside Mexican territorial waters). We're also willing to discuss a delivery to US west coast ports. Should you fly to Mexico and buy the boat, we'll defray the cost of travel up to $1000 USD, by deducting your expenses from the final purchase price.

We want you to start off with confidence and will provide up to three days of handover/instruction at the time of purchase. We look forward to hearing from you.



March 8, 2017

We need your help!


We have a paint job!

As we get ready to sell the boat, we're painting the entire outside and lots of the inside. It was frankly, time, especially for the exterior.

But our current hull wavy stripe paint scheme might not appeal to all potential buyers - so we are asking your help. Please email us or post in the comments section which is the hull stripe scheme you think would appeal to most buyers.

The bridgedeck cabin on our boat is a bit tall (I'm 6'-1") and has pretty good clearance above the water. The hulls are low and sleek. Which makes the cabin a bit bulky looking. So the best stripe scheme will help minimize this too.







- Evan

March 6, 2017

Passing the Baton—Puddlejump Fleet of 2017


One of the coolest aspects of being back in La Cruz has been having a chance to get to know the fleet of 2017 (plus a whole lot of other boats). Having made it the whole way round, and still smiling, gives us a perspective that a lot of the crews here don’t have yet. We didn’t fall off the edge, get swept up in storms, we weren’t captured by pirates and didn’t succumb to dragons.

And we managed to eat well, the whole way around.

As I mentioned before, in many ways, La Cruz is our ‘home’ port. We first spent an extended stay here in 1997 and over the years we’ve built up a little network of local friends and favourite things which make it clear that even when we don’t have a boat down here—we’ll still find our way back.

The kids thanking Cat for all the great things she puts together for them
burgee painting--to let other kids know there are children aboard
Our pivotal year here was 2011—the year we jumped. Between planning our Pacific Crossing with friends, buying way more stuff than we needed to, and prepping the boat (while stressing more than we should have) we attended seminars and parties which were coordinated by Mike and Cat (PV Mike and La Cruz Marina Cat).

The kids ran a taco restaurant for the day, for tips. Afterward they were able to donate a portion of their tips back to the community.
I’m not sure the fleet here (or the management at Marina Nayarit for that matter) has any idea of the incredible wealth of skills, knowledge, energy and generosity that Cat and Mike bring to the community. They are the sort of quietly giving people who are easy to take for granted—despite the fact that between them they volunteer to coordinate and run dozens of free puddlejump and WWS seminars and workshops—something we haven’t encountered in any marina outside of La Cruz.

Evan and Darrell on Wiz running a hand-on fibreglass workshop

Their enthusiasm for getting the annual fleet educated and ready to go is inspiring. Thanks to them--hundreds of sailors leave here each year a little more confident and a lot better educated. Thanks to them we’ve been lucky enough to share our knowledge and experiences in over a half-dozen talks and seminars over the past two months including Pacific Provisioning, Hands-on-Fibreglassing, Being a Kid on a Boat (Maia), Repairs in Exotic Locations, Travel Writing and Ocean Routing.

Dozens of people came out to hear me and Deb on Coastal Drifter talk about how we provision-she's organized, I'm not.
The experience has been a blast (though super labour intensive—it takes a long time to plan a two hour talk…). As a family we’ve been able to go back through our memories and really savour them—thinking about the highlights, the challenges and the successes. From the memories we've been able to build up talks of lessons learned and ideas we want to pass along.

While the talks have taken a lot of time away from prepping the boat for sale—something that we need to keep at the forefront of our planning if we're ever going to get home. And from my writing work—I have so many cool stories on the go right now that I fell quite divided up. It has been an absolute honour to be part of other people’s dreams—if only in a small way.

Maybe that’s what keeps Mike and Cat giving so much of their time and energy to the fleet year after year—that chance to help someone else make their dream come true.

As always--along with the work, there's lots of fun
 
For us—the past couple of months have been a chance to give back. We've had the opportunity pay forward all the small moments where people helped us meet our goals and fulfill our dreams: It's almost like saying thank-you in reverse.

It takes a village to get a boat across an ocean—and La Cruz is still one of the best villages we know.