by Michele | Dec 30, 2014 | Preparation Stage
We don’t have snow, but there’s nothing wrong with a sand angel on Christmas day instead!
The weeks coming up to Christmas this year were a flurry of packages, Christmas cards and Skyping with family. As our first year on the boat and the first away from family, it was important to us to make Christmas special and establish a bit of our own flair. I had the idea that I would have a fabulous menu planned with all of our presents perfectly wrapped and under our “tree” on Christmas morning ready to go. It turns out I was a little over ambitious on the menu side for my first try (I’m sure I’m not the first person to find that out!), but we still had a great time complete with a visit to the beach!
Our table was piled high on Christmas Eve!
One of the bigger challenges for us this year was trying to coordinate presents for Carter from the extended family. Because his birthday and Christmas are only about a month apart, finding enough gift ideas has always been an issue but this year it was especially so. Unfortunately, most gifts for his age range are space hogs featuring near life-size vehicles, sports equipment, and monstrous play sets. Seeing as how we are a little short on garage space, we had to a little more creative for him and us.
My sister Melissa got Carter a set of Ninja Turtle books. Now I just have to find time to read them.
Luckily for us, his friends on Viatori introduced Carter to the wonderful world of Lego only a few weeks before his birthday. Legos are perfect for boat life since they can be endlessly rearranged in new ways and store into a fairly compact space. Five separate sets of Lego Junior later and a general bucket from Grandma means we are now a fully stocked Lego vessel. Carter also scored some new books, a few superhero costumes, and some new DVDs to add to the collection.
We got Carter a custom book called “The Little Boy Who Lost His Name”. This is us reading it just before he finds out it is about him.
Here is his face when he finally figured it out!
Dan and I actually had quite the list ourselves of things that were luxuries for the boat/entertainment but perfect ideas for Christmas gifts. Here was the list we sent to the family:
- Explorer Charts of the Bahamas
- an Omnia stove-top oven
- waterproof Bluetooth speakers for days on the beach
- Handheld depth finder for our dinghy
- collapsible strainer set
- Underwater camera
- Kick-stand case for the tablet
- Bahamas courtesy flag and yellow Quarantine flag
- The Care and Feeding of Sailing Crew by Lin Pardey
Planning for our trip in the full sized charts is much easier than on a screen!
While we missed the family, we still had a great day together and are already enjoying our new gifts. Another Christmas success!
by Michele | Apr 9, 2014 | Preparation Stage
Let me start by saying that I never expected our 100th post to include the introduction of our boat. When we first started almost three years ago, we didn’t really know where to begin. We Learned to Sail the Hard Way and then decided it would be better to just take some lessons. Dan got certified as a Dive Master then Instructor, and we also learned that it’s better to just pretend to be a Rescue Victim. The Search was on for a boat this year but some days it felt like we might never get to this point, especially when we received the call from our broker that the Cabot 36 had sold. With a little luck and a lot of prayer, we’ve made it to the next stage of our journey.
We spent nearly 8 hours in the boatyard this last Saturday looking at boat after boat, but none of them felt like home. That is until we looked at the last one on our list: the Irwin 37 center cockpit. To be completely honest, we had all but written off this boat during our search. Generally, they are known for being a mid-range quality production boat from the 70s and 80s and frankly didn’t have the best online reputation. When our broker mentioned that he had one he would like us to look at, Dan and I basically just did a bit of an eye-roll and shrug “might as well look at it”. Little did we know.
Let me stop here to say that we had a fantastic experience with the broker we used but by request have not listed his name, since he would like to go cruising eventually as well and would prefer not to be known as the “broker guy”. He was extremely professional, very easy to get a hold of, and has a true passion to help people get into boats that they are going to love. His listings are some of the most thorough that we have seen throughout the country. If you are looking for a boat or thinking of selling yours in South Florida, just shoot us an email through the Contact Us page and we would be happy to recommend him.
As the broker described Tortuga (current name until we can close the deal), the one word he kept using was anomaly. This boat may be nearly 40 years old, but every major system on the boat had been completely redone in the last 3-4 years. New rigging, new masts (its ketch-rigged), new staysail (make that cutter-ketch), brand new full suite of sails, top-of-the-line electronics, new beefy windlass, dodger and bimini, and the list goes on. Over $100k of upgrades and renovations really sweetens the honeypot when our total budget for boat and outfit is only $50k.
What’s the ketch you ask? Okay that was bad. Well, the person who did all of these upgrades (the owner of a major sail maker company we found out later) decided after pouring in all of the money that he actually wanted a bigger boat. So he dumped it before the interior was completely spruced up. Some of the cabinets need to be rehung, the headliner needs old holes filled and painted, the wiring needs to be organized, and some of the plumbing needs help. Luckily, everything that needs to be done are fairly easy and cheap fixes but they currently make the interior somewhat less than desirable to most buyers, especially when compared to what you expect to find after seeing the immaculate exterior. Bad news for the seller, great news for us.
Some people might be wondering right now what happened to our Blue Water Boat criteria? Well, the fact of the matter is, we’ve come to realize like so many others that every boat is a compromise. After seeing what types of boats were available in our price-range we quickly came to the conclusion that the heavily built offshore cruisers just were not going to work for our family. With our short to mid-range plans being to cruise the Bahamas and Caribbean, we believe the Irwin will be a safe and functional home for the three of us. If in the future we decide to head offshore, we will meet that challenge head-on as we always do.
We hope you will continue to Follow the Horizon with us as we continue into the next exciting stage of our journey.
We are normal (well ok, not so normal) people that have a dream to see the world and live life as it was meant to be. We both have successful careers in the healthcare industry, even in this terrible economy. We want to break free of the current cycle of trading time for dollars and dollars for more and more things we don't need. So, we have decided to forego the fruits of our economic success and "retire" well before we are 30 and set out to see what is over the Horizon.