WHOSE BOAT IS THIS ANYWAY?

another assumption we both have encountered is that we are sailing our parents boat. my mother says she would buy a boat when hell freezes over. jp's response is that hell is where it freezes (the logic of an island boy).
i was talking with an american boat in panama and joking about how young i am to be doing this. a little while later the husband gave me a ride back to zaya. after seeing which one was our boat he asked "is this your p' paren' [pause] is this your boat?" my response was yes this is our boat, and there is no way either of our parents would own a boat. this may be due to the fact that we have what what our friends call a 100 ft boat, or rather our boat looks really good from 100 ft away and then as you get closer you see that we could really use a new paint job (something i would not recommend for any boat about to go cruising). another boat in panama who was anchored about 500 ft away actually asked when we got our boat painted. we just laughed and said they had not come close enough to see the reality. the reality is jp got the boat for a good price because of the aesthetic deficiency of the boat (mechanically it is fine). the previous owners put a few scratches on the hull and did not keep up with the bright work (the teak trim). it took them a long time to sell the boat, as most people in america buy a boat which looks nice in order to show off (just a little). when you go cruising you want a boat which sails well and worry about the aesthetic later. as we have learned you either sail the boat or work on the boat. the really shinny boats don't tend to go anywhere. i can't imagine how stressful it would be to go through the panama canal or sit in certain commercial harbor throughout the world with a new paint job. some boats were quite upset going through the pumice, for us we only hoped it would clean out waterline (which it did a very unsatisfactory job!).

jp also had a woman in the Marquesas assume this was his parents boat. she is 23 and is living at home preparing to get teacher certification. we are roughly her age, and she had not concept that one could own a boat. many people were surprised that we could own a boat at our age, but when asked about the price of their car it was almost three times as much as zaya due to VAT, Polynesian duty, and transport costs of getting a suv to a remote island.