Calliope on the move

Yesterday, Friday 18th February, Matthew, a big truck and a big crane moved Calliope from her first home on a block at Kinka Beach to her new (and hopefully last) home in Emu Park.  What was meant to take a few hours in the morning ended up taking all day.  Everything was going well, the truck got Calliope to the new block, reversed to where Matthew had told him to, and then for some unknown reason decided to reverse a little bit more and then got the truck bogged.

I'm not really sure of all the details of what happened after that.  I was working at school and at about 11am had a txt from Matt on my phone saying "Hey babe the truck got bogged so all sorts of dramas right now"

At 3:20pm when I was leaving school I still hadn't heard anything and no answer when I tried to call Matt.  I started having visions of the truck sinking in the mud off the side of the road somewhere and Calliope falling off and smashing on her side.  I almost didn't want to find out what the story was.  But I drove home via Calliope's new home, on the Emu Park Rd to see if it had made it.

I arrived to find Calliope sitting proudly in her new paddock, the truck still there and the crane still there.  My mind started going into calculator mode - trying to estimate the bill for a crane and big truck taking all day to move a boat.  I decided that was a silly thing to do and remembered Joyce Meyer saying "It is what it is".  The boat is safe.  We'll worry about crane and truck bills later.

The beginning

Well Matthew has just about sorted out the money side of things and in the meantime has taken off the mast and taken the engine out ready for shifting her out of the boatyard down to a block of land at Kinka Beach which will hopefully be her home until she's sea worthy.

Here are a few snaps which might scare the living daylights out of you or it might just make you glad that it's us embarking on this crazy project and not you.

Looking towards the stern of the boat - there's a lot of deck space up the front.

I call this the wheelhouse.  It's what you see when you first step inside.  To the left of the wheel is the companionway to down below.

The galley.  It's a bit of a mess!

The cabin on the starboard side.  It has it's own heads but they're too yucky to take photos of.

Looking forward to the forepeak cabin.

So... who wants to help??

The offer on Calliope is accepted!

This is all about Calliope. A 48 ft motor-sailer whose previous owner sank her by leaving a sea-cock open. She has since been salvaged and has been sitting up on the hard at the boatyard where Matt has been working. The insurance company, after paying the old owner, put her out for tender and Matt (having now fallen in love with her) put a ridiculously low offer in, which was laughed at by pretty much everyone and not taken seriously. Apart from the insurance company, who did take it seriously and have now accepted the offer (24th March, 2010)!
Calliope has come into our lives with some very, very poor timing! I have stopped working (and earning a full-time wage) for the year to do a diploma at University in teaching. We're also getting married in June and so it's down to Matt to try and support us both and pay for a wedding and now pay for Calliope!

That said, it somehow feels right and so we will be starting this journey with all that we have, which is faith. We have 14 days to come up with $15,000. Some of which we have, most of which we don't. Wish us luck or pray for us - whichever takes your fancy.