timings and thinkings

Maggie is being lifted today for her survey, and dropped back in Monday... Survey is Saturday... We've been gently exploring what boats we might like to replace her with... Of course its dependent upon what we sell our house for, and what we have to spend on its replacement, but if the plans work out, then the current favourite is a Beneteau Oceanis 411... We've been revising our thinking regarding buying brand new. As appealing as it may be to own a brand new boat, with a complete blank canvas for adding extras, a number of people have sensibly commented that there is huge advantage in firstly letting someone else buy all the bits, and living with their choices, and secondly, in letting someone else deal with all the hassles of a new boat and the niggles that go with it... Having looked at the market, we can get so much more for the money by just going for a couple of years old, and so this will probably be our plan... If we don't get quite as much as we want in cash difference between properties, we'll just have to downgrade our expectations a little... Other thing, is that we are also toying with the idea of moving marinas... we are a little fed up with the 9nm trek up the river anytime we want to go anywhere, and add to this the noise from saturday night revellers, and we'll see what the chances are of getting into either Shotley or SYH... prefer Shotley as it seems a bit more cruiser oriented rather than SYH's racing community, and is also a bit easier driving wise, but either would be good in reality....