Testing the Dinghy

Waiting for Scott

When we bought the boat, Scott, the previous owner, told us that we had to come to go over a few things such as lighting up the stove, turning the engine, how to access the refrigerator, turn on the heater… It was such a beautiful day and we were a little in advance, so we got to enjoy our newly purchase. This was our first taste of boat ownership 😉

Then, we had to go pick up some sails old and new, plus a spinnaker and the dinghy. When Scott saw the Fit, he laughed at us, saying that never everything would fit in this tiny little car. What? How dare you saying that about my car?! You can put almost everything in the Fit, and guess what? It did!! We had 4 sails (over 1000 sq feet of fabric each), the spinnaker, the dinghy with oars and a full set of deck cushions. The Fit was packed up to the roof, but we did it!

Half of the load

One weekend, Roger came stay with us and we decided to blow up the dinghy in our living room:

Notice the beautiful ironing table…

No leaks , we were set to go! Well, we could not make it very far…

Leaving Berkeley

Moving Sale – People were lining up and ready to buy!

We lived in Berkeley for 1 year and 1/2. I really liked it there, except when the downstairs neighbors’ dogs were barking at 2 am. We had a nice apartment, 1000sq feet, 2 bedrooms and the most pleasant was living 5 minutes walk away from the best bakery of the Bay Area. But our landlord decided to move back in, so we had to move.

Around the 4th of July, I started selling everything, coach, bed, tv, furniture, lamps, rugs, shoe rack, everything. In about 1 month almost everything was gone and then we had a moving sale. We gave a lot of books away and I rented for free my paintings. The only sad thing in leaving Berkeley is that my parents never had the chance to come visit us and see our place. Berkeley was our 1st apartment with Zeno.

This was our apartment:

Living room

Dining room – with Viturm’s sails

Finding the Right One

We started looking for boats in February. We looked at:

– Catalina 36 – not high enough for Zeno.

– Catalina 38 – doable if we were going on a trip around the world right away.

– Catalina 42 – I did not like the layout.

– Hunters – apparently no very sea worthy.

– Catalina 40 – humm not bad.

– Hans Christian 43 – did not sail for years.

– Boats from the 70s – too old, did not bother remembering the names…

– Catalina 470 – I must have this boat!

Catalina 38 – Alameda Boat show

Catalina Princess Seat