One boat, two boat, we got a new boat!!!

Sea Trial Day with our new boat!

Here we are on the sea trial day, with our new {to us} 1983 Endeavour 40'!!!

As you can tell, hubs is over the moon excited about the new boat, as am I!! I told him, "I'd like to think this photo shows his love for me, but I really think this photo shows the love between a man and his boat!" To my surprise, he responded with, "it's the love of a man that has a wife that lets me live on a boat!" ....yeah, he's a keeper!!! ;)

Enough of all that sweetness, let's get to the real reason you're reading this! 

We got our new boat the Wednesday afternoon before Christmas! (Whew, just in the St. Nick of time there Santa!!) We unloaded all the things out of both of our cars onto the boat on Thursday and then left Friday morning to drive to Fort Worth to spend Christmas with both of our families! Hubs really didn't want to leave his new boat, right after getting it, but neither of us wanted to call our mom's and tell them we wouldn't be home for Christmas, after telling them both, "we would be there for Christmas!" So, off we went for a few days...  

So, what did we buy? We went with a 1983, center cockpit, 40' Endeavour sailboat. For you non-boaty people, a center cockpit simply means, the helm {a.k.a. the wheel}, from where you drive the boat, is located in the center of the boat. Unlike our two Catalina's, that were both aft cockpits. 

The benefits of a center cockpit are mostly interior, giving better access to the engine and allowing for a bigger, roomier, aft cabin! Exterior wise, the center cockpit means you sit a little higher out of the water, which is good for both visibility and more likely to get sprayed by crashing waves! You'll have to remind me of that last one being a good thing when I post about how soaked we get!! 

Here's the layout in case you're not familiar with the Endeavours.... 

What are the differences between this one and the other two? 

• 1st boat: 30 foot long and had a beam of 10' with 5'8" headroom. Vberth, quarter berth, 1 head. 

• 2nd boat: 36 foot long and had a beam of 11'6" with 6' headroom. 2 cabins, 1 head

• 3rd boat: 40 foot long and has a beam of 13' with 6'6" headroom. 2 cabins, 2 heads

Is this boat, our forever boat? Only time will tell, but I do know that, the more time we spend on it, the more we like it! And, I do see us going cruising in this boat!! 

She needs a little love and attention on the outside, but the inside teak has been well taken care of and was just recently varnished! 

We even have a hallway!!! And the best part is, I don't even have to duck or crouch down to walk through it. Hubs has to tilt his head, slightly, but that's really the only spot. The rest of the boat has 6'6" headroom, so that is something we both appreciate, since we are both tall. 

The other major upgrade is that this boat has two heads (a.k.a. bathrooms). She's a two cabin, 2 head, layout, with plenty of storage and can sleep 8 comfortably, before we have to send anyone outside, to sleep in hammocks!!

Now for some more photos....

Starboard side of the boat

Port side of the boat

Navigation area | looking down the hall to our cabin

Hallway with control panel, engine room access, & more storage

Aft cabin | closet/storage

Aft cabin | bed

Aft head

Vberth | there's much to be said about this part of the boat, but for now, let's just call it the garage ;)

Forward head

Port side settee

Starboard side settee

Each settee folds out & makes a full-size bed

The galley

Closeup of the galley

The cockpit | albeit, somewhat messy

The aft deck | or what i like to call it, the back porch ;)

We still have a little settling in to do, but we are mostly moved in! Besides, I just couldn't handle keeping our blog readers in suspense any longer. So, now that you've seen our beautiful boat & disorganized cockpit, what do you think of our new digs?? Let us know in the comments! ;) 

Happy New Year & thanks for following along on our journey afloat!!!

We've done it again

We sold our boat, again!!

Signing papers at closing....

You may remember last time our boat sold in eight hours and we had to be off of it a week later. Well, this time we thought we had wised up a bit by waiting until the end of boating season, to list it. After all, it was mid-November and just a couple days before Thanksgiving, so we thought maybe, just maybe we could buy a little time and maybe we could have it in the 'for sale' column just a teensy bit longer, while we look for the next boat. Nope, that didn't happen! About two hours after we had listed Irie, we had it under contract....and no, we didn't list it too cheap..We're actually making money off of it! Albeit, not a whole lot, but it's always better to be on this end rather than to be losing money on the deal! The first couple that saw it, put in an offer...that we accepted. The crazy thing {well, one of the crazy things} is, is that our boat listing didn't even populate to the broker's website!! All my staging & photography skills used up and I didn't even get to see the final result.

Needless to say, the search is on to find our next boat!! I have stopped referring to it as our "forever boat" though and am just saying, "our next boat". Our pier at the marina is starting to look more like the 'Bricker Brokerage Pier'  with all our old boats lined up! Haha :)

In the meantime, we have become pros at being squatters!!! I wish I could say I was joking about that, but that's the downside to selling your boat in a couple of hours, during the holidays. Everyplace is either already booked or extremely over priced because of the time of year. The upside however, is the friends we have made at our marina have been outstanding to us in our current situation! We have had many, many offers for us to use their boats, come do laundry at their house or stay in their spare bedroom!! I've said it before, but it bears repeating, our marina friends & neighbors are without a doubt some of the best people and we are so incredibly grateful for their hospitality!!!

I'm hoping by the time I type up my next post, I'll have something to tell you (or show you) on our next boat, but until then, I'm keeping it hush hush on the blog, so nothing is jinxed! ;)

Here's hoping we aren't homeless for too much longer...until next time!

Why we do what we do...

In short? Because it makes us happy!

Still, even after two years of boat life, occasionally, when we tell people we live on a sailboat, we see the look of "why on earth would anyone want to live in such a small space, full time?" Or even when family & friends come see us & check out the boat. Not all, but some look around our tiny home and though they don't say it, you know that's just what they're thinking, by looking at their faces. It's times like these, that sometimes, I myself start to think, "are they on to something?" But then I remember, I'm not doing this to make anyone else happy, I chose to live in a small space because that's what is good for me/us, right now. For years, I lived everyday, for the future. What if this? What if that? Then a series of life events happened and one day I realized, that I not only didn't want to live the so called "normal" but I also wanted to live in the now! Enjoy every moment as they are happening, ergo, we live on a boat!

Yes it's small, yes it's different, maybe it's even weird to you, something that you can't manage to wrap your mind around and that's all fine and dandy because you don't live our life afloat, we do. And guess what? We're not done yet!! 

In fact, we've recently narrowed down our search for our next boat and are really starting to make progress in making a final decision. We are keeping the next boat under wraps a little this time, but that's mainly so you don't have to suffer through all the many, "we made a decision" & "we changed our minds" posts. 

What I will tell you about our next boat is this. It will be:

-->older

-->bigger 

It's okay, you don't have to understand why we do what we do! Having done both, we don't get how you'd want to mow grass for the rest of your lives. Our backyards may look differently, but we enjoy ours just as much as you do, well maybe a little bit more!! ;) 

How did I know this wouldn't be our last boat

I knew this wouldn't be our last boat, I just thought we would live on this one longer than 4 months before hubs started talking about selling it, to buy bigger. All this talk started about a few weeks ago when our broker called Joe and told him about a boat he knew of that was about to come on the market and wanted to know if we were happy with our current boat or were we at all interested in moving up?

Don't get me wrong, we love, love, love our current boat and are very happy with it, but I think we bought her out of a bit of desperation. If I had to break it down, I would say that we bought our current boat based off of the following percentages:

     20% | we love Catalina sailboats

     35% | we got it for an excellent price

     40% | we couldn't find the boat we really wanted

      5%  | we were tired of being "homeless"

Then, if that wasn't enough, hubs had to change out the water pump on our boat the other day, and well, he wasn't too impressed with all the things that had to moved to get to the engine. 

See, with the boat we have now, the engine is under the companionway stairs. So first you remove the stairs, then you move the few galley items that I store back behind the steps, because I can't waste space and leave that empty, like I probably should. Then you remove the shell that covers the engine....and now you can get to the water pump or whatever else you need to get to. 

That's not too terrible, however the harder part comes when you need to access the back of the engine from the aft cabin. 

Now if you can, picture all the things that we already removed before that are taking up temporary residence in the salon area and add to that anything and everything that is being stored in the aft cabin (including the mattresses/cushions). All this just for you to get the the rest of the engine. If you look real close you can see hubs' hand in the top left corner. He's wedged in the aft cabin to reach the back of the engine while I'm in the main area of the boat taking pictures and helping when I can, but mainly trying to stay out of the way and not trip over anything.  

With the boat we want (our dream boat, so to say) he wouldn't have this problem because, it has it's very own engine room and that makes hubs super-duper happy!!! 

We had been mulling it over when our broker stopped by and asked again, if we had any interest. Of course it's enticing because, it's the "dream boat"! But, we would only consider selling ours if:

a) we made money off the sale

b) we ended up with the dream boat

But how often does that happen?

Then the broker says, we could always fly your boat in under the radar at the upcoming boat show, see if we get any bites and if it works out good, then great and if not, you're not out anything. We both nod yes, (I'm thinking because, that could be an option). As our broker walks away though, I look at hubs and ask, "Did I just agree to what I think we just agreed to?" His reply: "Yep!"

In the end, we decided it was just to sudden for us! We want time to enjoy our current boat and we weren't looking to be homeless yet again. That, and the boat that got all this started was already sale-pending a week prior to the boat show. 

Joe has always been a wheelin' & dealin' kinda guy, especially if he can turn a profit! It was always cars in the past, but since we have moved onto a boat, that all stopped. But somewhere in the back of my mind I always knew he'd find his way back to it and I'm wondering now if it's going to be in the form of boats?! 

Just because we didn't put our boat in the boat show doesn't mean we have changed our minds. One day, we will get the forever boat, but first we need to decide which one she is!! 

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?

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....

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....

Max Capacity

A couple of weeks ago we were at max capacity on the boat! We had six people sleeping on the boat one night and it was a wee bit tight!!!

My brother & SIL had come in to pickup our nephews that had spent the week with us and they decided to stay the night, before driving back to their house in Louisiana. It was nice getting to visit with them a little, since we don't get to see them very often!

While we certainly have no intentions of purchasing our next boat with the mindset of who might come & stay with us on the boat, their overnight visit did help me to think of some things that could be helpful to have on our next boat, should we be at max capacity in the future. 

I still vote on having two, separate cabins, it's a must in my book! Mainly because I'm tired of sleeping in the vberth and I want a more normal shaped bed. Hubs on the other hand, goes back & forth, which makes me {go crazy, well that too, but no}, it makes me wonder if we should go with the dream boat or find a project boat for cheap?

We both really enjoy projects....hubs likes to build new things and I find pleasure in  decorating and redecorating. We both like to revamp the unvampable {is that even a word? doesn't sound right}. 

On the other hand, the dream boat would need little to no work, if any at all. Which can be a good thing, even for us projectiers....now that's definitely not a word! 

The above picture accurately describes my brain right now. I can't possibly decide which road sign is needed because I can't decide which job needs to be addressed first. I can see the benefits from both choices, but, for the life of me, I don't know if I should go left or right at the nearby fork in the road. 

Now, let's go back to boats: 

-The dream boat would prob not need any work, but would most likely cost $$$ and in turn take longer to pay for it, so, we would have to work/save longer before we could go cruising. 

-While the project boat would most likely cost $ need about $ this much more in work{for a total of $$} and most assuredly allow us to go cruising quicker. 

Seems like a no-brainer until I tell you that the dream boat comes with those 2 desperately desired separate cabins and the project boat.....not so much. 

I'm sure we will find the next boat soon enough, I just hope we both don't end up compromising too much. 

See, living on a boat is not all sunshine & roses! We have tough decisions to make, like, what we want....on our next boat!! ;)