Why there are no pictures

What we're hoping is that all the hard work in this boat purchase is at the front end. Don't laugh. We didn't choose the easiest of deals to sew up when we chose Enki ahead of the other boats on our short-list. A Swiss national sells a boat, with no EU tax paid on it, to a couple of Australians in French territory. The lawyers among you suck in their stomachs. We are optimistic, but we are holding our collective breath that after we've bought the boat we can leave her in Port Napoleon without a) having to sail her out of France immediately and re-import her or b) paying VAT. These are non-negotiable conditions of the sale, and though we've had positive verbal assurance from the customs agent whom Christophe engaged to put the boat in bond pending sale, we've insisted on a written confirmation of that advice before we complete the sale.  

Given that that happens, we then pay Christophe his money, and send off our application to Canberra to have the boat registered under an Australian flag. Only when we have Australian registration will we go with Christophe and the customs agent to see French customs proper and complete the legalities of the handover. This may all take some weeks. 

On the positive side of the ledger, a charming young Welshman drove here from Cannes on Friday and spent seven hours straight examining Enki in blistering heat.  He pronounced her a very fine vessel.  Her decks are in very good  nick (often a problem with the HRs, he told us), as is her hull. She's as solid as she looks, in other words.  He'll email us a 16 page report in two days, he said, but we have the guts of it. There are a couple of corroded sea cocks which need replacing ("it's a sinkability thing", he said) and there's a leak somewhere, either from the hot water or the generator, or both.  "Looks like the pressure relief valve on the hot water system, " says Alex. "And generator exhaust elbow."  Nothing drastic anyway, though much more contortion required from the man whose shoulders are still giving him grief (diagnosed "frozen shoulder", one of those frustrating time-will-heal conditions). 

Christophe drove back to Zurich early this morning with his rental van packed full of the remains of five and half years of living aboard - except for what he's left for us. We don't know exactly what that is because we still don't own Enki,  and we can't go aboard her yet. Amusingly, he has left us in charge of locking her up. When he arrived here three days ago, he was deeply embarrassed to find he'd forgotten the boat key.  He and Alex had to break into the boat. He's ordered a new lock from Sweden and Alex will install it when it arrives. 

So, we don't have any pictures yet. We've spent many hours on Enki these past couple of days, but it never once occurred to me to pull out the camera. It wouldn't have felt right to do that when we were sitting opposite Christophe, brokering the last sticky details of the contract. That part wasn't fun. That's when I wished there was a professional broker involved. There's a lot of fine print in these matters, and when you're drawing up a contract in two languages (German and English), there's a lot of scope for error too. 

We can see a chunk of Enki's bow, propped up on the hard stand, from the wide deck outside our second-floor apartment, and that's nice. She's in the section of this forest of masts labelled Paris on the yard plan. I suppose that's nice too. But then again, I'd be happy enough to have a boat in Oslo, or Rome, or Madrid. 

This is the state of play. We haven't opened the champagne yet.