Done deal!

It’s all done! After a few weeks’ slightly nervous wait, the title for our new boat has arrived! Up until this point I was still not 100% sure that the California DMV (basically like the DVLA here in the UK, but they also deal with boats) would accept transfer to a non-resident, but we’re in the clear, and she’s ours. Proper exciting stuff, and a lot less painful that I was expecting. The DMV office at Corte Madera didn’t ever have more than an hour’s wait, and I used our work address in the city as my “home address”. It does mean that she’s a US registered vessel, and with me being a UK resident we may, in some distant remote port, have a few questions to answer to over-enthusiastic customs officers … but the other option of registering with the SSR (Small Ships Register) here in the UK would mean that I’d need to get a cruising licence to keep the boat in the US. The cruising licence is only available for a year, and whilst you can just renew for further years, you need to have the boat outside of US waters for at least 15 days between renewals. Which from San Francisco is actually quite a challenge – it’s either Mexico, Canada or hanging around offshore for over 2 weeks. I was very, very tempted to plan for an extended cruise down to Mexico 12 months from now, but with my work commitments that’s not really going to be an option. So, the Stars and Stripes will fly from our stern in place of the Red Duster. We’ll live with it. For now.

So, Rose and I are busy making plans for Things To Do when we move on board later this year; my list containing things like “fix masthead light” and “fit gas detector”, and her list having “paint locker doors” and “change curtains”. We’ve got to be careful we don’t end up just having “pink” and “blue” jobs around the boat though!

Trying to figure out what we’re going to keep and what we’re going to get rid of as we move from a house (albeit very small one) is a challenge. We like to think we’re pretty light on “stuff” – but we’ve still accumulated too much over the years. Rose’s vast art library and art collection is going to have to thin down somewhat; we only have one sensible sized “wall” on the boat, and the marine atmosphere probably isn’t going to be great on books, even in California. I’ve not got much stuff, but what I do have is very big. Surfboards, bikes, kitesurfing gear, snowboard, climbing kit … I think we’re going to have to find a shed to keep some of this!