You read that right. Sundown is for sale! Click here (https://boatsforsalebyowners.net/106413) to get details and please pass along the link to anyone you think may be interested in buying her.
Now for the back story…
The last I wrote, Clay and I were beginning our six-week sailing adventure of the summer. True to form, British Columbia was beautiful and we were having fun exploring new-to-us ports and anchorages. We also experienced a series of events typical of boating that I find a bit unnerving, like waking up one morning to a loud thumping noise which turned out to be another sailboat that drug right into us. (How often have you woke up to find your neighbor’s house banging into to yours?)
Another day, with the mainsail and genoa deployed and 23 knots of wind on our tail, we were crossing the Strait of Georgia. The current was flowing in the opposite direction of the wind, so the seas were relatively big and uncomfortable in my definition (8 to 10 feet tall and close together). Sundown is a heavy displacement blue water cruiser, so she and her Captain Clay were loving it. (“This is just good sailing,” Clay likes to say.) I, on the other hand, was terrified as we heeled significantly about every fifth wave (to the point of needing to reef the main so we wouldn’t broach) and my keen imagination could see my husband falling overboard, leaving me to wrestle down the sails, turn the boat around in the steep seas and save his life. Additionally, the motion of the ocean was making me feel horribly sick. (Have I mentioned that I have a life-long history of motion sickness? And that even in our slip when the boat rocks about due to fetch from passing boats I’m plagued by nausea?)
Basically, I don’t like sailing. The best part of a day on the water for me is when we anchor or dock and I can get off the boat to go for a run or hike. I am admittedly and unapologetically a land lubber who will be much happier with a firm, unmoving structure to call home. I also will be overjoyed to be able to have a big dog again, like our beloved Serendipity who we had to leave behind and who has since passed.
How does Clay feel about all of this? I’ll let him speak for himself…
He says, “I know this is just another chapter in the adventures of Clay and Kim! I have already started thinking about the next boat project, and once Sundown is sold and we are settled I can start building a smaller boat, maybe a coastal cruising yawl that I can trailer.”
It’s been a grand four years living aboard s/v Sundown and we don’t regret this experience at all. We’ve made so many friends and seen so many amazing sights. Our lives have been enriched beyond measure, but it’s time for a new adventure of a more terrestrial kind that, for now, will be centered back in Colorado where our parents and all of our kids live.
Soon we’ll be hiking and backpacking in the Rockies, paddling our Wee Rob canoes across fresh-water lakes sans big waves and swell (Clay built them), and pedaling our bikes on the several-hundred miles of trails in NoCo. We’ll also be dreaming up the next grand adventure.
When we began our sailing journey, many people asked how long we planned to live aboard. We answered, “Until the time we don’t want to.” That time has come.
Sundown Sailing Adventures 