Well, we are at it again. Tomorrow we are renting another car (Enterprise loves us right now!) and heading up to Virginia. My sister is getting married this weekend at my parents house and we are heading up early to help with preparations.
We are also on the hunt for a "new" car. We have scoured craigslist for the last three days and found the best possible cars available and will likely spend an entire day test driving cars. While this is a dream for Brad, this is not even close to my idea of fun. But, this is the first logical step in moving back to land life and we are eager to have transportation again - especially down here in middle of nowhere Dataw. Unfortunately the used car pool is slim down here in the sticks, so we are looking in the Norfolk area where we can cast a wider net.
We are excited for the weekend festivities, but sad to be leaving our little floating home bubble again. Being so secluded down here has been great for the past week - we have watched many movies. discussed our future at length and just generally spent time together. And now that the threat of jobs looms before us, I am coming to appreciate this time even more. Not many people I know get to spend so much time with their spouses and I consider myself extremely lucky to have this time and this relationship with mine. There is something so comforting about just sitting quietly together, sitting in the cockpit enjoying the evening, or even taking the dog for a walk in the evenings. I am dreading the time when we get caught up in life again and rarely have time to even carry on a conversation. But that makes this time together that much more precious.
This sailing life has brought us so many wonderful experiences and it will always be nice to reflect back on these times and to use them to inspire us to do it again!
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Monday, July 13, 2015
In Limbo
So, these last few weeks have been a whirlwind of emotions: excitement, trepidation, utter sadness. Accepting the fact that we will be selling our boat has been so hard for us both - and add to that the fact that it was the first home we bought together and we are both having moments of doubt and sometimes complete depression. But, seeing all of our friends and family has helped us to realize that now that we are moving to land, we will have the benefit of being able to see all of these wonderful people so much more often. While we have made plenty of cruising friends, we have missed those land lubbers who have supported us and loved us through all of our crazy travels. They say it takes an village to raise a baby, and it will be nice to be close to people who can come running when we raise the white flag!
Being in this middle limbo between land and sea has only made this situation worse. Due to our transmission issue, we have been stuck in the same place for a month now. We are neither land lubbers nor out enjoying the ocean breezes on our faces, soaking up the last bits of sailing we will be doing for awhile. I think the latter part has gotten us in more of a funk than anything. Knowing that our time on the boat is coming to an end, we are both eager to get in as much sailing as we can and being stuck at a dock is just miserable.
On the other hand, we *think* we have decided that Little River, SC will be our new home we are eager to get her up to the marina and begin the process of decommissioning her to be sold. We have lots of cleaning, sprucing up and moving off to do before she can be shown and we both realize that the winter season is closing in on us faster than we would like. Ideally, we will have her sold before cold sets in, but time is of the essence.
Nor can we search out apartments and jobs until we have gotten settled in our new location. So, here we sit, in limbo - trying to plan out our next moves and get a jump on anything we can to make our transition easier, but also trying to enjoy the last few months of boat ownership. Neither is easy in our current state and I think we are both ready to get a move on and hurry this process up on all accounts.
I think a good day of sailing out on the water is just what the doctor ordered...
Being in this middle limbo between land and sea has only made this situation worse. Due to our transmission issue, we have been stuck in the same place for a month now. We are neither land lubbers nor out enjoying the ocean breezes on our faces, soaking up the last bits of sailing we will be doing for awhile. I think the latter part has gotten us in more of a funk than anything. Knowing that our time on the boat is coming to an end, we are both eager to get in as much sailing as we can and being stuck at a dock is just miserable.
On the other hand, we *think* we have decided that Little River, SC will be our new home we are eager to get her up to the marina and begin the process of decommissioning her to be sold. We have lots of cleaning, sprucing up and moving off to do before she can be shown and we both realize that the winter season is closing in on us faster than we would like. Ideally, we will have her sold before cold sets in, but time is of the essence.
Nor can we search out apartments and jobs until we have gotten settled in our new location. So, here we sit, in limbo - trying to plan out our next moves and get a jump on anything we can to make our transition easier, but also trying to enjoy the last few months of boat ownership. Neither is easy in our current state and I think we are both ready to get a move on and hurry this process up on all accounts.
I think a good day of sailing out on the water is just what the doctor ordered...
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Baby on Board!
The rest of this year is going to be a big one in our little family - we are expanding by one!
We have been dying to share this news with all of our family and friends, but thought it would be more fun to do it in person, so were waiting to make our semi annual tour. Although the waiting nearly killed us, being able to see the looks on everyone's faces made it worth the wait!
We are thrilled to welcome our newest crew member at Christmas this year and cannot wait to start this new chapter of our lives!! However, with this exciting news came an almost literal slap to the face - how were we going to afford a baby on a boat?! After much thinking, debating, a bit of arguing and lots more thinking, we finally came to the decision that it would be better to start our little family on terra firma rather than on the boat. So, with heavy hearts, we are looking for our final port and a place to sell our floating home.
This decision did not come easily, especially for me. I have been lucky enough to come across a few boating mommas out there (namely Genevieve and Brittany whose amazing blogs you can check out here: ItsANecessity and WindTraveler) who have befriended me and for years I have watched their beautiful children grow into amazing little people with a fierce sense of self. I have always loved and admired the way that boat children are brought up - exposed to so many different cultures and an entirely different way of life - they seem to be so much more aware and easy-going and learn such a sense of independence early on. I have always wanted that for my children and the thought of raising a child on a boat doesn't scare me, it excites me. But, to raise a child, you must have money and that is something that we are sorely lacking at this moment.
To be able to afford this fantastic lifestyle that we have lived, we have both had to work long, back-breaking hours when we are ashore. To cut one of us out of the equation to stay at home with a child means half of our savings gone and in turn, our trips would be cut in half. So, we have to make the decision that is right for us as a new family and will sell the boat. I will, however, be forcing my children to enroll in sailing school as soon as they know how to swim! The sailing bug is in our blood now and we are both still holding onto the dream that we will be back on a boat before we know it!
We have been dying to share this news with all of our family and friends, but thought it would be more fun to do it in person, so were waiting to make our semi annual tour. Although the waiting nearly killed us, being able to see the looks on everyone's faces made it worth the wait!
We are thrilled to welcome our newest crew member at Christmas this year and cannot wait to start this new chapter of our lives!! However, with this exciting news came an almost literal slap to the face - how were we going to afford a baby on a boat?! After much thinking, debating, a bit of arguing and lots more thinking, we finally came to the decision that it would be better to start our little family on terra firma rather than on the boat. So, with heavy hearts, we are looking for our final port and a place to sell our floating home.
This decision did not come easily, especially for me. I have been lucky enough to come across a few boating mommas out there (namely Genevieve and Brittany whose amazing blogs you can check out here: ItsANecessity and WindTraveler) who have befriended me and for years I have watched their beautiful children grow into amazing little people with a fierce sense of self. I have always loved and admired the way that boat children are brought up - exposed to so many different cultures and an entirely different way of life - they seem to be so much more aware and easy-going and learn such a sense of independence early on. I have always wanted that for my children and the thought of raising a child on a boat doesn't scare me, it excites me. But, to raise a child, you must have money and that is something that we are sorely lacking at this moment.
To be able to afford this fantastic lifestyle that we have lived, we have both had to work long, back-breaking hours when we are ashore. To cut one of us out of the equation to stay at home with a child means half of our savings gone and in turn, our trips would be cut in half. So, we have to make the decision that is right for us as a new family and will sell the boat. I will, however, be forcing my children to enroll in sailing school as soon as they know how to swim! The sailing bug is in our blood now and we are both still holding onto the dream that we will be back on a boat before we know it!
Thursday, July 9, 2015
Semi Annual Friends and Family Tour, Spring of '15
It has been awhile since our last post, and while there has been lots going on in our social lives, our poor boat is still sitting in limbo. Despite multiple phone calls and internet queries, neither Brad nor our transmission repair guy has been able to locate a new transmission for us. So, our boat has been sitting disabled at the marina for over two weeks now, with no end in sight. Luckily, yesterday, our luck changed....kind of. Our repair guy called and said he had decided to do a complete rebuild of our transmission using new parts. He had ordered them from Japan and hoped they would come in within the next two weeks. Add another week for the actual rebuild and another week for shipping and the actual reinstallment of the transmission on our boat and it looked like it would be another 3-4 weeks of being here in Dataw. While we were excited to finally hear that a solution had been found, we were less than thrilled at the prospect of being here that much longer.
Dataw has been fabulous - friendly, caring people abound and now with our spiffy new A/C, we are comfortably biding our time. But, we are car-less and there is nothing within ten miles of our little marina - literally nothing. So, here we sit, plotting out our next big move and waiting to see when things will be resolved. But we are hopeful! At least there is starting to be a dim light visible at the end of the tunnel!
Meanwhile, our social life has been great! (Not in Dataw - we are the only liveaboards and often we will go an entire day without seeing another person!) But if you remember from my last post eons ago, we decided to hit the road and start our semi annual friends and family tour early. Usually we wait until we are settled in one spot before we do this, but with the heat, this seemed like the perfect time. So we loaded our kids and our possessions into a rental car and headed out!
We have the best little travelers!!
We had so much fun catching up with everyone (and soaking in their A/C and running water) and were happy to be able to spend so much time with people since we were not on a strict schedule. We made it to Franklin to see my family first, then on to Baltimore to visit Brad's family and to meet our perfectly adorable little niece, Liliana, who we couldn't get enough of!
After seeing family, we starting trying to squeeze in as many friends as we could - Columbia and Richmond were next to meet up with some of my fantastic college girlfriends and then down to Corolla to see our home away from home and spend some time with the ever fabulous Defeo clan.
**Disclaimer: I was a terrible tourist this trip and hardly took any pictures! So sorry for the lack of photos in this post! I will do better next time!
We rounded the trip out with a tour of the North Carolina water front in hopes that we would find a new port to call home. We were surprised that none of the North Carolina towns had much to offer in terms of boater friendliness and convenience and even more surprised when we found that our two favorite cities actually ended up being Little River and Charleston, both in South Carolina. After a few days stay in Myrtle Beach to recharge our batteries, we headed back to the boat.
Although we love our road trips and enjoy our time catching up with all our friends and family, we were all happy to be back in our little floating home and have been soaking up our little slice of heaven.
Dataw has been fabulous - friendly, caring people abound and now with our spiffy new A/C, we are comfortably biding our time. But, we are car-less and there is nothing within ten miles of our little marina - literally nothing. So, here we sit, plotting out our next big move and waiting to see when things will be resolved. But we are hopeful! At least there is starting to be a dim light visible at the end of the tunnel!
Meanwhile, our social life has been great! (Not in Dataw - we are the only liveaboards and often we will go an entire day without seeing another person!) But if you remember from my last post eons ago, we decided to hit the road and start our semi annual friends and family tour early. Usually we wait until we are settled in one spot before we do this, but with the heat, this seemed like the perfect time. So we loaded our kids and our possessions into a rental car and headed out!
We have the best little travelers!!
We had so much fun catching up with everyone (and soaking in their A/C and running water) and were happy to be able to spend so much time with people since we were not on a strict schedule. We made it to Franklin to see my family first, then on to Baltimore to visit Brad's family and to meet our perfectly adorable little niece, Liliana, who we couldn't get enough of!
After seeing family, we starting trying to squeeze in as many friends as we could - Columbia and Richmond were next to meet up with some of my fantastic college girlfriends and then down to Corolla to see our home away from home and spend some time with the ever fabulous Defeo clan.
**Disclaimer: I was a terrible tourist this trip and hardly took any pictures! So sorry for the lack of photos in this post! I will do better next time!
We rounded the trip out with a tour of the North Carolina water front in hopes that we would find a new port to call home. We were surprised that none of the North Carolina towns had much to offer in terms of boater friendliness and convenience and even more surprised when we found that our two favorite cities actually ended up being Little River and Charleston, both in South Carolina. After a few days stay in Myrtle Beach to recharge our batteries, we headed back to the boat.
Although we love our road trips and enjoy our time catching up with all our friends and family, we were all happy to be back in our little floating home and have been soaking up our little slice of heaven.
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