The Northern Star is Found!

By Skipper Krystal:

Coordinates:39.3210° N, 111.0937° W, 47.6062° N, 122.3321° W

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky.
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.-  John Masefield

"Leo announces spring," goes an old saying. Well, in the time it took the constellation Leo to start its annual February trek away from the horizon higher into the sky, a certain Freedom Won was being toured, debated (a great, GREAT deal of debate) and at last bought. Now it is the Northern Star-officially, actually. The paper came today, all important-like in the mail.

How did this happen? Well, rewind to the end of the Seattle boat show. Remember the cagey reference to that first boat that was over budget and the bees knees? Well, we found no equal to it, vintage wooden wheel and all. Jack and I, Skipper Krystal, were forced to go home because of, like, responsibilities. But Mom and Dad stayed to the bitter, salty end and by the 10th day, came home from the Seattle boat show with an offer for the ship sitting on the brokers desk, for considerably below asking price.

So they signed first thing, no negotiations, and we sailed off into the sunset! Right?
Right?

Nah. You wouldn't believe the amount of stress, time, and water under the bridge it takes to see Northern Star at the top of the title. Once everyone above and belowdecks is sure you're serious, you haul all 42' of the boat out of the water, with a crane like six times as tall as a grown person! Then if you're smart you have the engine looked over. Luckily for us, nothing needed fixed, so smooth sailing! Right?

Wrong. The transmission was all but radioactive with lead and copper and nastiness, and everyone who didn't want the job said it would take days and days and 3000 dollars to haul out and fix. The ones who did want the job gave it a two days, and still made sure we knew that thing was really, really heavy and a big, big pain.

So that meant negotiating the price some more. From this we learned some Canadians like to count their pennies ten times over before giving you a dime. (Love you Canada! Love you.) I am glad the fellow is headed to the Caribbean after this. It was the Caribbean or a prescription of sedatives and Prozac to save his mental health.

Lucky for us, we got the Northern Star out of this instead and are very much looking forward to unwinding with her, starting a stress-free sailing life, cruising into the sunset. Right? Please?

Well, maybe. Turns out, How to Be A Sailor in Ten Days or Less turned into We Know Even Less Than We Thought We Did. We learned there were a lot of good books we HAD to buy (We're looking at you Waggoner's Cruising Guide)  but luckily we made some good friends too, like the co-author of Waggoner's Guide, Mark. So we got the skinny on a good sea captain that would be willing to take a few hopeful Utahns out on our boat (feels good to say it, yikes) so we're sure not to crash into Victoria Island on our way to Alaska.

Which means Jack and I and the Captain and First Mate are headed back to Seattle in a few weeks to get reacquainted with the Northern Star in all her glory. We'll try to remember all the stuff we've learned, and whatever you do, don't call ropes ropes, they're lines. Captains are likely to keel-haul you over a mistake like that.

See? We did learn something.

P.S. I found out Asterias means sea star in Latin. I think I'm going to name the rowboat in the Northern Star bath tub that.