The End (alt: A new Beginning)

Hurricane Gonzalos was unannounced. Forty boats went down in the lagoon. We were one of them. It took us about 24 hours to decide not to re-float the boat. The salvage would have cost a thousand bucks an hour and it would have taken a good few days. The engine would be trashed, and so would the entire interior, the electrics (think radar, autopilot, nav syatem etc.) and the water tanks, the batteries, the sails, the lines, winches and so on. I sold the boat for $1 at dinner the next night to an old friend who was in the business and needed a racing boat for his daughter. He would strip it out and didn't need an engine, electrics or anything else. We were back home within a fortnight and moved into a mobile home and started house hunting.

It was the luckiest thing that ever happened to us. Ask me and I'll tell you all.