As you all know, we sold Auana Ke Kai on June 23rd of this year. It was indeed a sad day for us, as we have lots of wonderful memories of our time on the boat. Not only was she our home, but our mode of travel and exploration for nearly six years. But it was time to move on.You may remember that our first Auana Ke Kai was the boat we sold in Florida in 1999 to a man from Texas. She was sold when we purchased the new boat, and never renamed by him. So Auana Ke Kai and her predecessor shared a name, and also our memories. This original Auana Ke Kai sailed to Hawaii from Californian with Eric and his friends. In Hawaii, she sailed the Pacific, and then came to Florida via the Air Force packed full of Eric's belongings. The day Eric and I married, we moved aboard this Auana Ke Kai, and ultimately sailed down the Inter-Coastal Waterway and found our way to the west coast of Florida. She had many fine adventures and made memories for us too. That's her on the left!
Two days ago I received an email from Australia, out of the blue so to speak. They asked if we owned "Auana Ke Kai" as they were interested in bidding on her and wanted to know what equipment was on board. We immediately knew it was not the boat we had just sold! A quick Google search, sent us to the same web site they had seen, and sure enough, the original Auana Ke Kai is in a salvage yard in Mississippi and being offered up for bids. As best we can determine, she was a casualty of Hurricane Katrina somewhere on the Gulf Coast. The pictures on the site show the damage, though as you can see, Island Packet builds one tough boat! She still looks good, and as the salvage yard says, she can be sailed, just needs repairs. But, it is sad to see her damaged like this.
We find it a strange coincidence that both our homes were on the market at the same time. We think our Auana Ke Kai is happily docked in Maryland now being sailed by her new owners. Hopefully someone as excited about sailing and Island Packets will bid and buy our first Auana Ke Kai.
1 comment:
Wow. Strange that both boats were on the market at the same time. Glad the first wasn't more damaged than she is. I hope she finds a good home.
Post a Comment