It has been three weeks since our last post. We were just getting ready to head down and look at Insignia, a Nordhavn 55 that Jeff Merrill (Jeff Merrill Yacht Sales) arranged for us to visit. Over the course of those three weeks, we made the decision to buy Insignia, put her under contract, finished the last punchlist items on the house, listed the house as well as the house selling in under a week.
Mazatlan
Alison and I connected thru LAX where Jeff joined us on our flight to Mazatlan. We took A 25 minute taxi ride (regular Mexico cab, not what is pictured!) to the hotel to check in and then a 3 minute cab ride to the marina. We met Neil at the head of the dock and walked down together for our introduction to Insignia. She is beautiful inside and out! Wow. Our in-depth tour wouldn’t start until the next day but we did a walk thru of her before heading to the flybridge for a cold cerveza. At that point, Alison and I knew…
Big oceans, small world
Prior to going down to Mexico, we did our typical google search to see what we could learn about N5505. We read a little about Neil and Elaine Williamson, the current owners, and that Insignia is their second Nordhavn. Prior to Insignia, Neil and Elaine ordered a new 57. It sounds like this won’t be their last Nordhavn they own…
The small world part? Alison stumbled across a blog that connected the prior owners (Don and Lili Weippert) of N5505, when she was known as Lilipad, to us. Don and Lili are good friends with Mark and Rita Hanses. We bought our 1998 Bayliner 4788 from Mark and Rita 8 years ago. We remember Mark telling us stories about being on their friends 55… Small world.
Oh, yes, we need to finish the house…
Alison and I returned to reality two days later with our to do list for our home. We had wanted to have it listing ready the Tuesday after our return but knew that was too aggressive of a timeline. We needed another weekend to get it ready. Thankfully mom and dad came over and helped us wrap up our to do list (second weekend in three weeks). The house was listed Tuesday night, May 3rd and it went pending 5 days later. What a hot real estate market right now. Thankfully we don’t have to try and buy another property right away. We do close on the house May 26th – fortunately, we purged the house of many things that aren’t needed anymore. But it is still “moving”. This will keep us busy…
So when do we get her?
The last week has been full of talking to surveyors and juggling everyone’s schedules to make dates fit. Insignia is still down in Mazatlan. Neil will be bringing her up to San Diego, targeting an end of May arrival. At that point, Neil and Elaine will spend a little time getting her ready for us. The surveys are scheduled for June 13th and 14th. We look forward to seeing Neil again and finally being able to meet Elaine! We hope to close about a week later, give or take June 21st. We are currently talking with our potential crew on departure dates (from San Diego to Seattle, with a San Francisco pit stop) but hope to be in Seattle early July.
Busy next few weeks
We have re-energized our search for moorage here in Seattle along with discussing what our summer plans will be. This is on top of moving out of the house and planning for closing on Insignia and the related need to re-supply her before we bring her home. Oh – and we are off this weekend to Knoxville, TN to bring Kirsten home from her first year at University of Tennessee. Go Vols!
Congratulations. A new adventure ahead