It’s been a long time coming

Well, I finally did it. I started our blog. It has been a long time coming. The past year has brought a lot of false starts, a lot of (lost) notes, and a lot of hot wind. Now I am happy to say that I have officially started a blog!

So what is this blog going to be about, you may be asking yourself (if title didn’t give it away). Great question. Well, firstly it is about my family living on a sailboat. We moved off land and onto our sailboat full time in November 2011. Living on a sailboat has been quite the adventure. Some people think we are crazy, irresponsible, and whatever negative adjective you can think of. Others think we are adventurous, wise, and living life to the fullest. Clearly, I prefer the opinions of the latter group. So I will be writing about living on a boat, traveling to exotic and not so exotic places. But it hasn’t been easy living on a boat. I wish that there were more resources out there for people like me for tips, wisdom, and encouragement. The second reason why I am writing this blog is to help other like minded individuals who are either thinking about moving on to the water, or are already living on a boat and would like to know that they are not alone in their way of life.

Who is this family that decided to leave land life to move on a boat? Let’s start with me (the second in command, or 2IC). I am a 30 something (I still can’t believe that I am in my 30s, but a friend told me that 30 is the new 20, so that helps my ego), mother of a 2 year old boy, and owner of three dogs. Yes, and we all live on a sailboat. It’s funny because I was never a sailor…ever. I could count the times that I have been on a sailboat on one hand. And I didn’t like any of them. So how did I start sailing and even start liking it? My husband (we’ll call him Capt’n), who is from tropical North Queensland Australia, and I were living in cold, frigid Massachusetts. He was so miserable in the cold that we agreed that he would do something that would fill in the summer months that would make the winter more bearable and that hobby was sailing. He discovered Craigslist and bought a 17’ sailboat. I reluctantly went out with him…only after stocking up on yummy treats at Trader Joes. After a few day sails in a local lake, I realized that I did enjoy being out on the water, relaxing, eating, and soaking in the sun. I began to take friends along with me and we enjoyed listening to music, drinking an eating, while Capt’n sailed us around the lakes of central Massachusetts. A Craigslist addict, Capt’n kept finding “killer deals” on Craigsist and he would buy bigger boats and sell the smaller ones. During the height of the buying and the low of the selling we had five sailboats in our back yard and our neighbors called our house “Hudson Marina” (for the inland town we lived in). The stories of how we acquired these boats are a book within itself, but we finally ended up with a 1984 Cal 24 sailboat, and began our ocean sailing out of Nahant MA. We loved that boat, and had a great time sailing. It seemed that our time on the boat was a lot “easier” than our time on land. Work was slow, bills were adding up, unfinished house projects were accumulating, so Capt’n said one day, how would you like to live on the Cal? I thought he was crazy and said no way! He made me watch the movie Dove, which is about a young man who circumnavigated the globe on a Cal 24. I still wasn’t convinced. But Capt’n knew what would get me. He knows that I love to travel, and traveling was one of the things that brought us together (another store for another time), so he made me realize that living on a boat I would get to travel full time. That and the warmer weather convinced me to move onto a sailboat…but NOT the Cal 24. So after much looking (which seemed like a full time job) he found a Whitby 42 and we bought it. However nothing is simple in my life and in the middle of all this planning I discovered that I was pregnant with Capt’n in Training! To some, this would be a plan changer, but not us! We went full speed ahead with the planning. So in November 2011, Capt’n, Capt’n in Training, myself, and our three Jack Russell Terrors, I mean Terriers left Marion Harbor MA for…destination unknown.

 As I mentioned earlier my husband, Capt’n, is An Aussie. This explains a lot about him. He is also very handy and is a trained mechanic, so I know that when the boat needs a fixin’, he is the one who can do it. He loves finding new and inventive solutions to problems and trying out new things, so he will be providing technical reviews and problem solving on this blog.

Our son, Capt’n in Training is a two year old firecracker. Son of two stubborn, opinionated parents, it is amazing that he has the best traits of us both. I say he is American, Capt’n says he is Australia, but I guess technically he is both. He now has spent more of his life living on a boat that living on land. Another part of this blog will be about raising a toddler on a boat…which for us involves using cloth diapers, finding toys that do not take up much space on the boat, and activities that occupy him while we are sailing, and ways to exert his energy on a small living space.

We have three Jack Russell Terriers. Rolly is the oldest. He is 10 and we brought him back from Australia. He is the gentle giant of the pack. Lyla is “my dog” so of course she is the best behaved of of the bunch. Except when she does something bad and then she is Capt’n’s dog. Adi (Hebrew for Gift from God) is the offspring of the two of them. People often ask if they are boat dogs and our response is they have no choice.

So I think this is a good start to who we are and what this blog is about. If you enjoy reading this, please “follow” us, send us a note and share this site with your friends.

I will enjoy traveling with you.

Smooth sailing