1974 23' Aquarius

In my last post I mentioned that Don "won" an auction on e-Bay. Saturday we went to Dana Point to complete the transaction and see the 23 foot 1974 Aquarius we would be calling ours. We met Tim (seller) and his son, Noah and traded our dollars for the pink slip.
We were able to get a key to the dock, having been able to get the slip at a pro-rated fee until the end of the month when we plan to pull it home on a trailer. Tim was nice enough to give us the slip for 7 days from purchase, free.
With the two 17 foot McGregor Ventures we had the swing keel corroded into a fixed position and Don was concerned about that so asked Tim to let us try reeling the keel up. Tim struggled with it and we decided we should see if cleaning the hull and keel of barnacles would cure the problem. While Tim went to the bank for the money certificate to pay for the dock key we bumped into a diver who was kind enough to offer to check the keel right then. He cleaned the keel and it moved freely afterward, so while we were at it, we had him clean the hull as well.
After a morning of watching the diver clean the bottom of the boat and taking photographs to send my friend Penny (and post here), we went to Harpoon Henry's there in Dana Point for lunch.

I apologize for the color. I had a little technical difficulty. (bad habbit of changing the white balance to "incandesent" and forgetting to change it back to "outdoor").

The motor was being sold separately and since we want a 5 horsepower that will also work on the dingy we bought a week ago, we were not interested in this 10 horsepower Mercury motor.
Too, Don would like to get a new motor rather than a used one.

The bubbles here are being caused by the man under the boat cleaning the hull.

After examining our boat from stem to stern, we were hungry. We came here to Harpoon Henry's. While waiting for Don busied myself photographing the pretty Christmas decorations. Don soon arrived and a lady passing by, Paula, offered to include us in the picture I'd been taking.


And this one is from the table we were seated at. I didn't quite capture the impact I was going for of the pretty Christmas decorations. I think the lighting was actually dimmer than this shows, making the faerie lights stand out more.
My friend, Penny requested details of the outside of the boat so I took an abundance of pictures of the rigging details --to the extent possible with the sails down.

Click HERE for the rest of those boat pictures.