Our first overnight anchoring!!! :)

For the first time in I can't remember how long, Joe and I found ourself on the cusp of a great weather weekend and we both had off work!!! It was the perfect trifecta!!! 

At about 8pm on Friday, he says to me, "you want to go out on the boat?" To which I reply, "sure! most people probably go out before sunset, but yeah, let's go!!" So, we untied from the dock, motored out into the channel, watched the most amazingly beautiful moonrise and decided to do a little night sailing!! It was perfect! Our first night sailing experience and we were blessed with a gorgeous full moon....it was so incredibly peaceful and I wasn't near as nervous as I always presumed I would be sailing at night!! It was so great out that night that we decided to drop anchor and spend the night out in the bay. 

        Sorry the photos are so grainy. :/

Everything was going great, Joe cooked us some dinner, we watched a movie out in the cockpit and then around 1:30am we decided we were ready for bed. But wait! I was having so much fun on our spur of the moment sail/anchor idea, that I forgot to get in my exercise challenge. (Ugh, why did I wait all day?) Squats are hard enough on land, but there I stood in our salon, trying very hard to keep my balance while at anchor & did all 112 squats for that day....I think I deserve extra credit for pulling that off. Next, it was my daily dose of ab workouts & I was done. I crawled into bed, and thought I was going to get some sleep. But because we just anchored out in the middle we were not protected from the big rolling waves each time a ship would pass by, therefore the trampoline effect began to happen. We laid there for a few minutes and both sat up about the same time and said, "this isn't going to work!" For any non-boaters reading this, sleeping in the vberth usually is not a great idea because the movement of the boat can make you quite nauseous. We thought about sleeping in the aft, but it wasn't much better so we pulled up anchor and motored back to the marina. We got the boat back into our slip at 2:25am and we're finally back in bed at 3am....what a night!!

The next day, we went out in the afternoon. Of course, there was no wind at all on Saturday, so we put down the sails & cranked up the engine and motored all the way out to Redfish Island. 

We made it there about 4 o'clock, dropped anchor and just relaxed a bit. I laid out while Joe took a nap. Then I cooked us up some oven nachos and we watched this incredibly gorgeous sunset take place!! 

I absolutely love how this looks. And     no, it was not photoshopped to be half color/half b&w

Obviously, we were awake in this next photo, but after two attempts with a super bright flash, we decided to show you, how great "sleeping" in the cockpit can be!! 

We took some interior cushions and made a makeshift bed and slept outside! It was an absolute wonderful feeling sleeping under a blanket of stars with the moon shining down on us! It was a little bit of a tight squeeze, but we made it work. And I am so glad that we did because this was the first thing I saw when I woke up:

I jumped up and went and got my fancy-pants camera and spent the next 30 minutes capturing one of the most magical sunrises I've seen in a long, long time! There's just something about a sunrise over water that will make me set an alarm to make sure I'm awake for!! 

These clouds were just phenomenal to look at

We also saw quite a few ships pass by us. Being this close to something so big & mighty, sure makes a person feel small!

And, I wouldn't be my geeky, sailor self, if I didn't get at least one shot that included a winch. I don't know what it is about that big hunk of metal, but man does it ever look good!! :)

We plan to do a lot more night sailing as well as anchor out more often!! After all, that's half the fun of living on a boat and we don't have to spend money on a weekend getaway!!

So you bought the boat, now what's the plan?

As you may have figured out by now, we are not trust fund babies. {I know, shocker!} We work for everything we have and we save for anything we want! So, we are living on the boat and saving in order to take some time off in the near future to go sail, cruise and explore by way of the boat! 

When is this near future departure date? No one knows....not even us! But we do know there are certain things we want to cross of our 'To Do' list before we leave....and let me tell you, the list ain't short! 

This was Joe in the middle of winter starting our to do list. Notice the smirk on his face? Hmm!!

In case you couldn't zoom in enough, here's a closeup shot of our list. 

Of course the first thing he writes in my column is, 'get job' .....um, I had/have a job, I just had't started it yet, when he was first writing out the list! {crazy man} ;)

Sure, we love living on the boat, but that was only the first part of a much bigger dream! And after recently checking out our neighbors boat, Joe got inspired by their 'to do' lists {things they need to do before they leave to go cruising}. 

Now, we have started our own 'to do' list. One major item that's not listed {because it's a no brainier}, is the fact that we need to save up enough money to be able to take off work for (at least) an entire year so we can truly enjoy the cruising lifestyle that so many of our fellow sailor peeps are also doing! This means we need to have enough money saved to pay any ongoing bills that you can't pay off, (insurance, cell phone, etc), any docking fees/boat maintenance, oh and money for food for an entire year! Joe might be living off fish, but anyone who really knows me, knows it's nothing from the sea for me!! I may not look like it, but I actually eat a lot! In fact, just writing this post is making me hungry. 

--->quick break from writing to have some chips & salsa<---

You may have noticed it's been a while since my last post and that's because we've both been working every chance we can get so that we can work at paying off a few things while also saving money, like its going out of style!!

Our list at Christmas looked like this....

As you can see, a few things have actually been crossed off, but at the same time a few things have also been added. I have a feeling this is going to happen quite a bit. :[

Living at the marina we see a lot of people come and go. Some live on their boats for a short time and then sail away but for some, it takes a lot longer before they are ready to leave. We are part of the latter group. Because we chose to live on a boat while saving and prepping for our departure. 

We can now cross off getting the bottom job done & purchasing a dinghy! 

We're getting closer every day, but don't be surprised if you don't see us out cruising next year. While that would be awesome, we are trying to be realistic and not jump the gun, just because we are impatient and want to go now! 

Plus, there's that one other thing we want to do before we go....and that is to sell this boat and buy a more sea-worthy boat!!! 

Welcome to our ever-changing, but truly wonderful, life!!! :)

Until next time....