What made us decide to live on a boat? Part 1:

I've been meaning to write a post for a while now explaining what made us decide to take the plunge, so to speak, and go live on a boat. Well, there's no real, simple answer for this....that's not true. In short, the answer is always going to be, "Why not?" The long answer? Well, that's where this post comes in....

Who wants to live the same mundane life, day in and day out? "What's for dinner?" "Did you pick up my dry cleaning?" "Where are we going on vacation this year?" .....Oh wait, that last question is actually, sort of where all this began. "Where do we always go on vacation?" "To the beach, of course!" Sure, we may have once seriously considered moving to Chicago, but ultimately, we are both warm-weather people. That's when it hit us, we are always planning a vacation at the water...why not buy a boat and always be on the water?!?  

So, we thought about it and talked about it.....and thought about it some more. Then, we started looking at boats! We looked at boats online, we went to boat shows, we read forums & blogs about other people who live on boats. And we always asked ourselves, "Could we do this?" "Could we live on a boat and be happy?"

 I've got to say, at first, I kind of thought this was just another idea of Joe's that would never actually happen. You know, we were just day-dreaming. In theory, it all sounded quite blissful, but would we ever really take that step?

After careful consideration, we came to the conclusion: we were going to live on a boat. At this point, we didn't know how or where, or even what, but what we did know was, we wanted to buy a boat. 

So, we did some more online searching & we went to even more boat shows. And then came the hard part {for me, anyways} sailboat or motor yacht? I think we all know that I'm a yacht girl at heart, but you see, I've married this wonderful man who fully understands the concept of fuel consumption. In addition, we know that wind = free and well, yeah, I lost that decision.

 A sailboat it is, but what brand?? Have you ever looked at buying a sailboat...so many to choose from. We knew we wanted a sloop rig{see pic below}, but other than that, we were unsure. 

Joe had heard about The Great Loop {see pic below} and we decided that was something we wanted to do when we got our boat, so that helped with narrowing down the search a bit, since there are certain draft requirements in order to complete the loop. Plus, we knew we would want to eventually head for prettier waters {I.e. The Bahamas, BVI's etc...} so we knew we needed something capable of crossing the gulf. 

 

 

All these things helped in the narrowing down process, but there was still so much more to look into.....and, that's where I'll pick up at in an upcoming post!