First voyage on our new boat

At the end of last season, we decided to invest in a smaller motorboat.  When we bought our first boat in 2021, boy I had no idea what a steep learning curve I was about to experience, in a nutshell, it’s very similar to buying a house.  When we decided to sell our first boat, again another steep learning curve but this time it was more stressful, as we had to make so many new scary decisions and deal with boat brokers😮‍💨.  Two months felt like two years, finally, we sold the boat and I thought I had learned everything there was about buying and selling a boat, how wrong I was. Then the boat searching mission started again, well it never actually stopped.  When we eventually found BRIO, a Bayliner VR5 2021, with 115hp xs pro-outboard, we were so excited only to then start a new learning process called buying a boat and applying for a marine mortgage to close the little gap between purchases.  That process was completed on 3/9/22 when we decided to store BRIO with the broker, we bought her from for the winter until the 3rd of March. I am writing this on the 4th of March 2023 from the comfort of our cozy cabin on, you guessed it, BRIO!

We’d arranged to have Brio transported from Lincoln to Premier Marina Swanwick, her new home.  

This was also new to us as we were with MDL Marinas when we had our previous boat, also located on the river Hamble.  We arranged to have her delivered at 7am on Friday 3rd March, we were up at 3am getting the roof box and car packed, it felt like we were moving into our new home.

 

It took a while to get ourselves familiar with everything including collecting our welcome pack, and key fobs from reception, and moving Brio into her new berth.  Brio needed a clean, so off we went to the chandlers to find a hose connector that was compatible with the one at our new marina, no matter how prepared you try and be there’s always something!! 

The fancy all-singing and dancing hose pipe system didn’t work despite us purchasing several connectors, after a plan b with buckets and quick wash down.  Then the fun of packing all our provisions, and getting acquainted with storage space! Finally,

 it was time 12h30pm for us to get underway for our passage to Beaulieu River.