Having made the decision not to leave the marina and be lifted out to sort out the seacock issue, we agreed with the yard that we would be lifted out on the following Tuesday, October 10th as there were high winds forecast for Monday and we would need a lot of help to get round to the lifting bay without an engine. With that decision made, we then had several days ahead of us to spend on Nimmie and enjoy her, even if it was only in the marina. We had met a lovely French woman, Dominique, who had a Grand Soleil 46 and had also just been launched from the boatyard. She was preparing to sail to Tunisia with her son and friend arriving on the Friday night. At this point, she still had the sails to put on, mend the toilet, replace all the batteries and get her autopilot to work! She was launched on the previous Tuesday and very expertly manoeuvred into her berth single handed despite the high winds. Over the next few days, we spent quite a bit of time helping her out and also relaxing together in the evenings. She wasn’t going to have time to do the food shopping before the Friday just before she was due to leave so we made sure to feed and water her!

As we now had some spare time, we contacted a local surveyor to see if he would undertake a pre-purchase inspection report that we could show potential buyers who may come from all over the world. Whilst Nimmie is 25 years young, she is one of the last Westerly Oceanlords built and this marque has a very good reputation for safe, ocean crossing adventures. A friend of ours who sold their Oceanlord a year or so ago, had people wanting to fly from as far as Scandinavia, USA and Ireland. Let’s hope we manage to garner as much interest!

The surveyor arrived at 0930 on Sunday morning (clearly didn’t have much of a home life but very convenient for us) and spent the next four hours pulling up floorboards, rattling rigging and generally having a good old dig around. The upshot was that he didn’t find anything wrong that we didn’t already know about and was on the maintenance list. He was pretty impressed with her condition given her age so that was comforting. We even managed to rig up a hose pipe so we could show that the engine would work with the seacock replaced.

We also contacted a local yacht broker as we thought we might need one based in Greece rather than an international one based out of the U.K. Firstly, they know the market in the Med and would be on hand to show buyers around. Secondly, they only charge 5% commission whilst the U.K. is double that and thirdly, they are quite happy to have an open agreement so we can advertise on the Cruising Association and Westerly Owners sites. Yiannis from YD Yachts had come highly recommended and we agreed to meet in the marina on Thursday. He was a lovely man and loved the boat. Again, very complimentary about Nimmie and thought she was in a very good condition for her age. We weren’t sure whether we would be in the yard or in the water. As it happened, we didn’t get lifted out on the Tuesday, no reason given and then had high winds Wednesday and Thursday so it would be Friday at the earliest. We changed our flights home from late Wednesday to late Friday hoping that would be ok. Friday morning came with virtually no wind but our lift out time came and went. We were starting to worry that we would never get lifted and the office weren’t very comforting as they had a lot of boats to lift that day so weren’t sure when or if it would be managed on Friday. However, around 11.00am one of the marineros came round to say we would be towed round in 20 minutes. Hoorah. Except 20 minutes slipped to 2 hours but then two of them in dinghies came round and towed us to the travel hoist. Phew. Within 45 minutes she was safely ensconced on a cradle and we could tidy her up ready for any viewings. Taxi to the airport and a flight back to Gatwick – luckily not Luton as it still seems to be chaotic there following the car park fire.

As you can imagine, we are both very sad at the moment and feeling somewhat melancholy. Our heads say this is the right decision but, gosh, our hearts are saying something very different. Of course, if we don’t get a fair price for her, we won’t sell! To help us get over our decision, we’ve decided to fly out to Portugal for a few days as the U.K. is a wee bit colder than Greece!!!