2015 Year-end review

  **Click here to read last year's year-end review.

•sailing jargon I think I'm finally learning the terms of sailing {about time, I know}. As far as the actual art of sailing goes, yeah, I still have a lot to learn!! Better watch Captain Ron again! {I'm not kidding}

•it's back to the v-berth Oy, this ought to be interesting! We've been sleeping in the aft cabin ever since we bought the new boat, but hubs swears this v-berth is bigger than our last one. So, we're going to give it a whirl.....to be continued. 

•Houstonion Drivers are the worst! Bless their hearts, they don't know how to drive to save their lives. I figured this out last year, but I thought I better give myself more time, before I judge their ways. All my life, I've heard how the traffic is the worst in Houston and I now know why. A few examples: 

A.) it's not uncommon to have a five mile, bumper-to-bumper backup for a slight curve in the road. Seriously? 

2.) they constantly block intersections...and nothing is ever their fault 

D.) they don't understand the concept of little road yields to big road....it's a free for all, I tell ya! 

These people would never make it in DFW...Never. I could seriously write a whole post on this, but I will spare you any more pain {lucky you}!! 

•easy-bake oven I have finally become more comfortable cooking with my mini-oven. I even know how to light the pilot light and I will now cook even if Joe isn't here....that never happened with our other boat. 

•appreciate the little things our brief stint of being homeless {between boats} greatly reminded me to never take the little things for granted....like an easy-bake oven and everything else! 

•our nameless boat remains unnamed. Our poor boat will start off the new year with no name. It's sad, really! We actually have a name for her, but our graphics guy....well, I've already been on one soap box this post so I'll just leave it at that. 

•Movie reference Did anyone catch the movie reference above? Joe and I might have a small problem....you see, we incorporate movie/tv quotes into our conversations on a daily basis. True dat, Ernesto! See, it just happened again! 

2015 sure has been an interesting year....I  wonder what 2016 will bring for us!!!

Thanks for following along with us {another year} on our life afloat!! Oh, and Happy New Year!!! 

Keeping busy....decorating vs. organizing

There's no reason why you can't decorate when you live on a boat....you just have to be more creative about it! 

Now every female of a liveaboard couple knows, you can't drill any holes in the boat for decorating purposes. {I use a lot of tape and command hooks} Although, if you ask me, I'd say that in a way, hubs was "decorating" the cockpit when he drilled eight holes to hang the lines up in this very organized way.

....but what do I know?! ;) The lines do like nice though, don't they?! 

      FYI: rope is referred to as line once it's brought onto the boat. No, I don't know why normal words all have a new word that means the exact same thing, other than sailors want you to learn a whole new language whilst also learning a whole new hobby. Left is port, right is starboard and rope is line. Why can't it just be left, right and rope?? I don't know, maybe there's a Rosetta Stone somewhere out there that teaches the sailing jargon. I could play it when I go to bed each night and get in some valuable sleep learning time!!

-rant over-

He did allow me a few holes to hang up a spice rack. Which helped clean up the space so much! I went from this bowl of my 'most used' spices....

 

To this neatly organized spice rack!

I think what it really comes down to is, the wording. If I say I want to hang up a pretty picture for decorating purposes, it's a no go on drilling holes. But, if I want to organize the boat in order to keep it neat and tidy looking....that just might me the magic phrase. :)

For the jazzed up galley cabinets above, I used a decorative tape. It's like contact paper, but instead of large sheets, it comes in a small roll {similar to duct tape}. 

 Simply remove the hardware, affix the tape, replace the handles and there you have it!!

I have big plans for the bathroom{head}, if only I can remember where I bought the tape in the first place. Haha! 

Until next time....

Why we decided to sell our house and live on a boat....

Unless, this is your first time reading our blog, you probably know a little about how we came to living on a boat. We don't try to hide the fact that we wanted kids, we love kids!! In fact, we wanted to have children so much so that we spent ten years trying to make that happen, including numerous doctor visits, several procedures and approximately $40,000 out of pocket.  Long story short, life had other plans for us! 

In the 2-4 years prior to us buying our first boat, we had started talking about how cool it would be to live on a boat, when we retired. We looked at boats all the time! I'm talking, online, boat shows, TV/movies/blogs and more online. Joe was definitely more into it than I was, I still had babies on the brain, but the thought of warm air and tropical places kept me interested. The bug had bit us so hard that we started talking about taking a year off and going cruising, mostly because we didn't want to wait until retirement....we are so not the patient kind! But, we were still trying to start a family, so it always slid to the back burner. 

Rewind to a few years earlier and little did I know, my whole world would change when I was 25. My thoughts about life would be forever altered. 

My oldest brother died at the young age of 31 and it wasn't until his funeral that I learned he was actually talking about buying a sailboat. Sure, I knew when we were kids that he loved the outdoors and one summer in South Africa, him and a friend spent every waking hour in a little day racer where he learned everything he could about sailing. But spending his weekends crewing and possibly buying a sailboat?....I had no idea. I talked to my brother, though, apparently not often enough if I didn't even know this. But one thing about my brother that I think everyone knew, is, he lived his life.

Life and loss kept going, in the next few years, we had two miscarriages, my cousin died and my Mamaw passed away. Joe lost a couple family members and we both were given the harsh reality that life is short! No one knows how much time they have and yet so many people are perfectly happy living their life with the expected normalcy that we grow up with. Two cars, a house working corporate jobs and waiting for retirement before possibly doing any big traveling. Although now, most people have to go back to work, because their retirement isn't enough to really live on. 

One day, I walked out of my home office and looked into our spare bedroom, the room where I had many times, envisioned a nursery and beautiful baby(ies). I always thought {and dreamed, prayed, hoped and wished} that I would be a mother. Try as I might, that wasn't happening and in that instant I knew that if I couldn't fill up my home with babies & children, then I didn't want to live a so called "normal" life, in a house where every time I walked past that room, I saw failed attempts and sadness. I remember it as clear as anything, I walked into the living room and told hubs, 'forget about waiting, let's just buy a boat and move aboard'. 

Obviously, I didn't have to tell him twice. We rented out our house, lived in a rental for about a year, bought a boat and moved to the coast! Our life may not have been what I had originally envisioned, but I am thankful that we are living life and hopefully honoring my brother in some small way! 

Nobody puts baby in the corner.....or me in the v-berth!

We had been on the new boat for only a week when we noticed we were getting a lot of moisture in the aft cabin, partly due to all the rain we've had lately, I'm sure. 

We pulled everything out of the aft cabin, so it could air out. I put a few moisture absorbent contraptions in there and left the fan on to help circulate the air better! Since we had the berth all cleared out, we decided to bite the bullet and go ahead & order the not so cheap, Hypervent Marine product to put under the cushions. 

In the meantime, that meant we had to sleep elsewhere. Hubs asked if I wanted to sleep in the the v-berth & my answer was, "Nobody puts baby in the corner!" {I was actually quite proud of myself, because I am the type of person that normally needs about a day to come up with the perfect rebuttal}. So, we decided to make up the bed in the salon, it was comfortable enough, but it would've been better if it was about a foot longer. Because both of us are pretty tall, we couldn't quite stretch out all the way, unless you slept diagonally, and then the other person was really squished!!

The Hypervent arrived!! And now it was time to measure & cut it to fit these weird bed shapes. 

I bet you didn't think our bed was so big, but here's hubs measuring the foot of the bed....while all you see are his feet and legs....he may have also been checking the engine as well, got to make the most out of your bed being torn apart! 

Here it is in place under the cushions! Of course I forgot to get pictures of the measuring, cutting & installing because that was a two person job and I was busy being the 2nd person, but it's not rocket science, just measure, cut & install. :) 

This is what it looks like on the underneath side. That white plastic-type stuff helps to keep the air flowing & cut out the moisture under the cushons to avoid mold from growing. 

Lastly, here's what it looks like close up! Keep in mind it will raise the height of your cushions, but not by all that much. 

We had just enough to do both cabins and we have already noticed a huge difference in our war on moisture! 

Fixing things already!

Every boat owner knows, there's always something that needs fixing! The fix list over this past weekend was replace the shower sump and buy a new head, because apparently this one is shot. And, because it wouldn't be true boat life if only one thing needed to be fixed, our refrigerator also decided to crap out on us {pun intended}. No refrigeration and no head....two pretty major items for full time liveaboards and yet, I don't know how they both went unnoticed in the survey that was just done. 

Poor hubs had to work on the head on his day off. It was already a crappy day {no pun intended} because we couldn't go out sailing, again. We've had the boat 3 weekends now and every time he has a day off, it rains. It's a conspiracy, I tell ya!! 

So we, ahem, he replaced the shower sump pump and worked on the head while I focused all my energy on not throwing up....I don't do well with smells and let me tell you, a t-shirt folded up into 16 layers and I was still struggling. Oofta may!!! 

{the smell is all gone now, thank goodness!} 

After all that, I noticed the refrigerator didn't seem as cool as it normally does, so hubs started to diagnose the problem as I tearfully threw out all the food {buh-bye  +/- $30, it was nice knowing you for a brief moment}. Joe figured out that the control module had stopped working. So because the brain isn't telling the arm what to do....it has no choice but to do nothing. And of course you can't just go buy that part, oh no, they want you to buy a brand new unit {um, I don't think so, why replace the whole thing when all we need is a new brain}. However, now we have to find & order it online, so I'm back to not cooking again. Ugh! 

{ding-ding} Order up! .....wish I could show a more glamorous brunch than pb&j on a paper plate, but this is what we eat, sometimes. I've been dreaming of my oven nachos again! Oh how I love them, though I usually make those before we take someone out sailing for a pre-sail snack, I might have to make an exception. Of course I'll probably need to wait until we get the fridge fixed and I actually have food to cook with.....yep, that would probably be smart!! ;)

Until next time....

Our beautiful boat!!!

I don't know what we're more happy about....to have a boat again, or to be out of the box!! I'm telling you, that box life was not for us, at all! There's a reason why I never took an interior picture of the place, {which is odd for me, because I usually document everything with photos} but this was one area of our life that we don't care to remember. They said when I rented it, that they don't usually recommend our cabin size for couples, because they go in talking and leave not speaking to each other. And though that wasn't the case for us {we're not your typical couple}, we are both extremely happy to be out of there!!!

Now, onto what you're really here for....pictures that you really want to see!!! :)

Remnants of the sunset and our boat, front & center!!

Can I just say how much I love our new to us boat!!! Ain't she a beauty?!? Okay, okay, more pictures.....

Hello there beautiful, walk-thru transom...no more crouching over the side to climb aboard!!

The salon area....

Six foot bigger may not seem that much to everyone, but when you live on a boat....6' makes a world of difference!!!! It's not just longer than our last one, she is also 2' wider! The floor plan is mostly the same as our last boat, but one noticeable difference is the two cabins, complete with real-live doors for actual privacy {when guests come visit}!!

Here's a peek into the aft cabin, where we sleep!

The head {bathroom}....it's so much bigger than our last one, you could spin around in there, if you wanted to....that would be weird, though!! 

The v-berth, where our guests will most likely be sleeping {yes, we'll remove the extra cushions first...probably}! Most of this is usually kept in the cockpit, but when it rains the v-berth becomes the storage area. Let's hope it doesn't rain when you're here visiting!! ;)

And speaking of noticeably different.... My new galley is much more spacious!!! I now have all galley items {food & dishes} actually in the galley, versus stowed in every nook & cranny like on our first Catalina! I didn't waste any time getting back to cooking either! I have been cooking every day & even as I am typing this, the boat is filling up with the aroma of banana bread baking in the oven....man, I've missed my "easy-bake oven"!!!

Friday, we moved the boat into the Marina. Saturday was spent going back & forth to get our things out of storage and by Tuesday we were completely unpacked....{all my cross country living & moving came in handy}! For the last two days I've been decorating & making it look and feel like a home!! We have now been on the boat for exactly a week and all it wants to do is rain, so no sailing just yet....I guess it's time for a movie marathon in a really clean & organized boat!!!

And just in case I missed anything, here's a shot of the floorplan....

After being homeless for two months, we are ecstatic to be back on a boat....our boat!!!!

So, what do you think?!

We bought a boat!!!!

It's officially ours, but due to paperwork and work schedules, we are unable to go "pick her up" until tomorrow. :[ I'm like a kid at Christmas, I'm tired of waiting and I just want it to be here already!! But just because we have to wait another day, doesn't mean I will make all our readers wait to find out what we bought. 

Now, onto what you're really here for....all the boat deets and pictures!!!

She is a 1995 {7 years newer than Irie} 36' {Irie was a 30'} Catalina {same as Irie}. 

Looking in from the cockpit....

The galley {kitchen}....

The aft cabin {1st bedroom}....

The v-berth {2nd bedroom}....

We got what we wanted....a bigger, newer boat, ok, I wanted the newer, hubs would have been happy with almost anything! We are both so happy to have a boat again!!! 

So, what do you think? Who's going to be our first visitor to see the new boat?

Quick {next boat} Update....

I did it! I broke the cardinal rule of looking at boats, I got attached and now it's a no go. Back to the drawing board. Ugh!

I'll admit it, we were enticed by that 40 footer with a great price, but even with its great price it was still pushing our budget beyond its max. We decided to use that blasted hindsight everyone's always talking about....so, we retracted our offer and walked away. 

On the flip side, we found a 36' that was about to be put on the market....saw it, liked it, swooped in and put in a more budget friendly offer on it! If this one goes through, then you'll get all the deets, but until then, I think it's best to keep things under wraps. Otherwise, the pity party might get a little extreme! Haha ;) 

Making progress....

Well, we wanted a bigger boat and we may have found one! Eek!! We've put in an offer on a forty footer....40', that's ten foot bigger than Irie was!!! :]

Last weekend our broker called and asked us to come and take a second look at a boat he had showed us before, because the price had recently been lowered and he thought it might work for us. I remembered that I had loved the galley in that boat and even though hubs wasn't overly thrilled with the brand, we went and gave it another look see....and, we decided it wasn't for us. Luckily, our broker was prepared for that {he knows us quite well} and was ready to show us another boat with a recent price drop as well! It was older and not bad, but also not for us. 

We then took another look at yet a third boat and loved it....only problem was, its price was still the same, no price drop and way over our budget...so, we walked away. Not exactly what we wanted to do, but we know what our budget is and we are confident that we do not want to be boat poor. It's absolutely wonderful living on a boat, but when you're too poor to do anything else, that's not so great. 

We hung out at the marina a little bit, saw some friends, went and had lunch at a new place and ran some errands. That night, we were back at the box when our broker messaged us and asked, "what if he could get the price down a little, would we be interested then?" Again, it was incredibly hard, but we said no. We knew it wouldn't be lowered enough to be in our budget, so as much as we want to get out of the box, we told the broker it wasn't going to work for us. 

Another hour went by and our phones dinged with a new message from the broker. He said the seller had agreed to accept an offer at 40K below the asking price and all we needed to do was come in and sign & submit the offer. The next morning we went up there and officially put in the offer, contingent of course on financing, but, if all goes well we will close at the end of the month and be back to living aboard!!! Yay! 

I'm sure by now you've noticed that I managed to write this whole blog post without mentioning any defining details about the boat, other than how long it is. I know, I know, you want to know everything now, but, I've got to keep something a secret until hopefully I can do a big reveal post! So, keep checking back and please keep your fingers crossed for us, as we are so ready to be back on a boat....our boat!! 

Until next time....

We've moved, again....

The box is what I have so affectionately named our temporary dwelling. This little cabin is where we will be taking up residence for at least, the next four weeks.

 We have got to find another boat and fast! 

Sure, I could take pictures to show you the inside, but really, it would just be one picture because it is that small! I will give you a vivid description however, that should prove to be far more enlightening! When you walk through the door, on the right wall {of the box} there's a light colored faux wood desk accompanied by two light colored wicker chairs, complete with green vinyl, circa 1960's, I'm sure! It is followed by a tv stand {that I'm pretty sure is covering the water heater} an uber small TV along with an even smaller DVD player. Now we are at the back wall of the box, where there's a super small & thankfully, closed off bathroom. Its depth is as wide as a shower stall and there's a toilet across from the shower. Come out of the tiny bathroom and there's a "kitchenette" with a little bar sink, microwave, itty-bitty coffee pot, a couple of cabinets & a dorm sized refrigerator. And lastly, on the left wall of the box, we have a lovely set of.....wait for it....bunk beds, oh yeah, you read that right! :/ There was a little joking on "who gets the top bunk" but all joking aside, I can't remember the last time I actually slept in a bunk bed and here I am, mid-thirties, sleeping in a bunk bed. And just in case you were wondering, no they are not the kind you can remove the top part of and put side by side, not that there would be room for that anyways, in the box. :[

In fact, hubs & I were talking the other night & he said it is actually smaller than the living space of our 30' sailboat. So there you have it! 

There may not be any sailboats in our immediate view {literal & metaphorically speaking} but one thing remains the same, we still have incredibly amazing sunsets, like this one from last night!!

Homelessness on the horizon....

A couple weekends ago, on a whim, hubs & I decided to take a super mini road trip and get away from it all! Friday at about 6:24pm we up and decided we were going to go somewhere! We left a little before 7pm and started driving south. We ended up in Rockport, a small coastal town near Corpus Christie. We thought we'd look at a couple of boats, well, we looked at the outside of one & crossed it off the list immediately. It's amazing how pictures can lie! I called on another boat that we wanted to see, but the broker couldn't be bothered to show it to us. {must be nice to be independently wealthy, cause he sure isn't making money selling boats} Luckily, I made friends with a local fish market lady and borrowed her key to at least access the dock where the boat was. We still didn't get to see the inside of the boat, but a close up visual of the outside showed us that the boat wasn't worth the amount they were asking. However, we didn't cross it off the list just yet, but we also haven't decided if we want to take on that big of a project. So the search continues....

Aside from the radio station playing music from the past 25 years & giving me the feeling of having my very own mix tape....the real plus side of our little getaway landed me with this most wonderfully king-sized bed!!

It was enormous and I may or may not have took a running jump & dove onto said bed! I could've stayed there forever, oh but if only I was independently wealthy!!

We have just over a week left on the trawler and then we will be back to being homeless. I had hoped that we would've bought our next boat by now, but this month has gone by incredibly fast & we just haven't found the boat we really want, yet. 

So, it looks like we will be back to square one...whatever that might be! 

Boat shopping continues....

Just when I think we decide on a certain boat brand, we {and by we, I mean Joe....(okay, I do too a little bit) but it's mainly him} change our minds and go with something else! We both are desperately trying not to jump into a quick decision just because we are indeed desperate, but the clock is ticking before we wind up homeless, again!

A few of the boats we've looked at lately. 

At first we thought for sure we would buy another Catalina. Then we threw that out and decided on a Morgan Classic <---my favorite!! 😊 After finding none locally, we thought it might be better to find a boat near us so not to have to pay any extra charges (I.e. shipping/trucking the boat, hiring a captain or taking time to go get it & sail it back ourselves) all of which are added expenses to the purchase price of whatever boat we buy. 

Originally I wanted five things in my next boat:

1. Walk through transom 

2. Two separate cabins 

3. Usable counterspace in the galley

4. Double stainless steel sink in the galley

5. More overall storage

One & three were somewhat negotiable, but the others were basically must-have's. 

Then Joe went back to his love of true ocean going boats. Which are great for well, ocean going, but living aboard, not so much. Don't get me wrong, they really are great boats {most of them} they are just much much more narrower than I would prefer. And none of them meet my full criteria, basically I get the double sink and more storage. No walk through transoms on the older boats, usable counter space is sketchy and don't even get me started on the lack of cabins. 

When I think of an aft cabin, I'm thinking more along the lines of what a 2nd bedroom would be in a house....maybe more like a tiny house 2nd bedroom. But mainly, it would have an actual bed that sleeps two people, somewhat comfortably! However, the problem comes with most of these ocean-going boats only having a quarter berth and if you're real lucky, maybe a 3/8 of a berth..... Not exactly what I had pictured in my mind. .

 In all actuality though, I could probably do without most of my criteria. I mean I lived on a 30' boat for 14 months and quite frankly that was never what I had thought would happen, so maybe I just need a new picture in my head. Needless to say we are both going to have to come to some sort of compromise or even a few compromises, before we can decide on what boat to purchase. But really, it would also help if we fell into a nice loan too! Because if the boat is more than thirty years old, banks will not finance it and well, most of these ocean-going boats that is within our budget tend to lean on the older end of the spectrum. 

So that's where we are at right now. A lot of "I don't knows" and "we'll see's"!! Hopefully by my next post I'll have something more to tell you! 

Until then....

And we're back living on a boat....But, it's not what you think! ;)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again....the boating community is some of the nicest people we have ever met!! We had numerous other boaters offer us their extra cabin when we so quickly became homeless. But knowing how small a boat can be, we didn't want to invade anyone's space that way.

We didn't however mind {too terribly much} invading family's space, when we crashed their vacation and spent 5 days with them on their 37' fifth wheel. Thanks again for that!! ;)

We then spent a week at an extended stay hotel and was starting to wonder where we would be living next, when we were offered a boat to stay on...score!! One of hubs' coworkers had just bought a 40' Marine Trader trawler and wasn't planning to move aboard for a little while. So when he offered to let us live on it through the month of September....we graciously accepted!! 

Now, because it's not ours I don't feel right about sharing photos of someone else's boat, especially without their permission. But please go do a bing/google search on this type of boat {if you don't already know what it looks like} so you can see what awesome digs we temporarily have!! 

It is seriously so huge compared to Irie! It's like a mansion in terms of size comparison.... About twice a day, I hear hubs saying, "how he is going to have a hard time getting me back on a sailboat" ....especially all these small ones he's been looking at lately! And yes, all boats are small compared to what we are currently staying on! :) 

As much as I do love power boats, I know fueling them would be quite costly and wind is free....blah, blah, blah! :)  We will be back on a sailboat....soon, I hope!! In fact, we are planning a mini-road trip this weekend to go look at some boats, so wish us luck in our search for the next boat!