Once we decided to follow our dream, our next step was to buy a boat! It might seem like a fun and easy task to do, but…living in Colorado added a layer of complexity. Talk about earning some frequent flyer miles!
After many hours of research, we dialed in some specific blue water boats that would meet our needs of having a safe and solid boat, one that wasn’t too slow, all the while not compromising comfort. In over a year, our search took us from Seattle to New York to Mexico and back again. We saw some amazing boats…and we saw some not so amazing boats. There were times we joked that we were professional boat shoppers as we traveled to look at nearly 40 sailboats during our search. We were flying across the country every couple weeks searching for our boat, wondering when we would find the right one. I think it’s uncommon for people to look at as many boats as we did, but we wanted to find “the one” and we didn’t want to settle for a boat that we weren’t 100% confident in.
In January 2020 we flew to San Francisco and saw a few boats before making our way to San Diego. Once there, we saw three boats, one being Karuna. We knew she was the one. She met all of our requirements, plus some! Karuna is a 1985 TaShing Panda 40, designed by Bob Perry. We are only the third proud owner, of this beautiful boat, with the original owner having her for 33 years.
Once finding the boat of our dreams, we made an offer! After some negotiating, we were moving forward in fulfilling our dream! It was back to San Diego for the next step; the survey, which is similar to getting a home inspection when buying a house. We spent many hours going through the boat with a fine tooth comb, noting everything that needed work, replacement, or a little extra attention. Next we hauled her out to check her hull and then finally we got to take her on a sea trial. Sailing on Karuna for the first time was amazing! She is such a solid and safe boat and we were impressed with how she handled with ease.
We continued to move forward with a closing date of February 14, 2020. With everything coming together, I made the announcement at my work and we decided to move Doug onto Karuna once we closed. We rented a van, packed Doug up and headed west! Closing on Karuna was such an amazing day! Our dream was coming together and we were so excited to start our next chapter!
Check out the map showing everywhere we went on our boat search!
