(Pictured above is my brother, Bryan and my mom)
Below is the email I sent my mother and brother right after I got some fairly unnerving news. To put things into context, we are right in the middle of moving out of our house and into temporary accommodation. We are days away from flying down to Palma, Mallorca to buy our 56′ yacht, take possession of it and sail it to Barcelona, Spain – a 12 to 17 hour sail.
Serious issue – we can’t take our yacht to Barcelona, Spain as planned – YIKES!
Hey Mom & Bry,
I’m at the coffee shop with 5% battery left on my Ipad. No internet connection or phone at home. Everything packed up…filling the truck now to take to the flat tomorrow. We exchanged yesterday and complete tomorrow on the house sale.
We had a serious issue that hit us yesterday… Spain agreed to charge us X thousands for tax…and they’ve now decided against it. They want to double our tax liability. If we do that, we don’t have any money left to sail. The issue is that we must sail the boat, once we buy it, to a country where we pay tax OR find a tax haven (non-EU country).
So Gibraltar is the closest tax haven…I have no idea where Gibraltar is!
Apparently, we can moor it in Gibraltar and then do some sort of deal with Malta so we’ve been told. It’s a bit nuts. From the sounds of it, Malta will allow us to pay a lower rate of tax…and possibly allow us to pay it over the course of the year, but we’ll need to go to Malta at some point to do paperwork (with the boat). That’s not an issue – Malta is below Italy and we’ll sail by it anyway… We think we might have to fly a Maltese flag rather than a British flag…What a faff. I just need to keep going with the flow…going with the flow…
We’re trying to get in touch with our skipper who is going to help us to sail to Barcelona to see if he can change to Gibraltar. The difference is a few days so we’re not sure if he can do it. The crazy thing is that once we buy the boat, we must go to an independent country (from the EU). I suppose I just need to realize that my adventure has started and roll with it. I’m just afraid that Sim and I will have to sail the boat to Gibraltar by ourselves and that scares me.
I’ve only done one night sail and never alone.
Four days of non-stop sailing to start off with are way out of my comfort zone…and what do I do with Sienna while we’re sailing?!? Might bring Keith (father-in-law). Yikes. I will keep you posted. Please send positive vibes that our skipper can get us to Gibraltar!
And always remember that we will always be safe.
Bry – I will get to North Carolina on the 2nd of January! No matter what, we will get there…
Big love,
Me
The next video that we did is done. Check that out here: Extra: Sell Up and Sail Away Video 2 – Our thoughts, feelings and move day!
Next Chapter: 22. The day before we purchase our 56′ Oyster
Previous Chapter: 20. A lesson on stopping the ‘what-if’s’ from taking over my life!
Or…if you’d like to carry on reading all about our journey from selling up and sailing away, you can purchase my book, ‘Changing Lifestyles – Trading the Rat Race in For A Sail Around The World,’
 | READER REVIEW On Amazon. 5 Star Review! "Interested in The Sailing Lifestyle? Are your needing just one more reason to change your life for the better, Just buy this book. I actually bought this for my wife(Workaholic) last year. It was the deciding factor for us to change things 😉 , After she read Kim's Book & we watched a few episodes of Sailing Britican (& a few others) we realized there is more to life than the rat race.....! Thanks." Jon D. |
