As the title says – after owning her for 7 years and living on her for 6 and a half, I no longer own Gudgeon. She was sold to a couple who are just starting their adventure and I think she’ll be a great first boat for them (and is getting reflagged back to a US vessel after all this time!)

I’ve gone over the reasons for selling a couple of times in previous posts (short answer: after postponing for two years because of Brexit and then Covid, and it looking like 2021 was also a no-go to cross, I’d run out of impetus and probably wouldn’t have been able to finish the trip around the world with my remaining money. I saw it as a good time to take stock, get some long-term passive income going and get a new boat) so I won’t rehash that again.

So what’s next? Well, for now my main priority is hunkering down and just surviving through this pandemic, like everyone else. There is definitely a ‘homing instinct’ that kicks in in times of stress and I am just happy to be in Canada and waiting for this all to blow over.

Jobwise, I managed to get a job with a university, and then got another job offer for the BC government after I’d been at RR for a couple of weeks. Like buses! So I’ve accepted the BC Government job offer and will be doing that at least for the next while, while trying to make enough money on the stock market to retire by the time I’m 40 (a landmark set by my Uncle Simon who managed to do it after selling a company he’d started).

Boatwise/Adventure wise, I am not sure as of yet. It’s still winter (just had a huge dump of snow) and the pandemic is still on so it makes it hard to think of adventure or fun things. I will get another liveaboard boat at some point (depending on the boat market, it’s nuts right now) in an attempt to give this whole thing another go and I am REALLY looking forward to the search now I know what I am doing and won’t just hop on the first boat I looked at (although I got really lucky with Gudge). I’ll keep the blog updated throughout the search and afterwards, but for the short-term, this will probably go quiet for a bit.

Also, the blog needs a rename. Any ideas?

And so, farewell to Gudge. An absolutely amazing first boat, that never let me down even when I was doing some extremely dumb shit.

The first picture I ever took of her in 2013

and the last one, in early 2021 on a sea trial for a prospective buyer

May she continue sailing for many years to come!

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