How It Began

It all started on a cold February night. Ben and I were chatting in bed and he brought up the boat people with a blog. The blog of the couple followed their adventures cruising on a yacht all over the world that Ben had been following for a while. We had talked several times prior about selling our house and buying a catamaran power yacht once we both retired and our kids were in college or beyond, before becoming grandparents, returning to our beloved honeymoon sites in Fiji, so this conversation was nothing new to me until… he told me they were selling Domino- their 2009 Malcolm Tennant yacht.

I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but in true Ben-fashion, he had thought up the next Carter Family Adventure and wanted my buy-in. Of course, we have had a ton of these Carter Family Adventures with our camper and cabin, but it seems, now the adventures have been calling him (us?) to the water. Knowing how hesitant I was with our other big purchases in life, I decided it wasn’t worth digging my feet in, in opposition and decided to just trust him, start researching, and get on board (pun intended).

He told me his ideas, including that we could each take a leave from our jobs, I could homeschool the kids while they’re still young, and we could travel the world while teaching our kids that there’s more to life than the everyday suburbia life we currently live.

He showed me the listing for Domino and the walk-through video, pausing on and off and narrating the whole time about what different things are for or how they would apply to our new boat-life, while answering all of my silly questions and trying not to get annoyed. His time with his grandpa on his grandparents’ sailboat, Afterglow, learning all there is to know about nautical and maritime life was taking a front seat in our adventures.

Ben emailed Marie, one of the owners of Domino, and was talking with her about our interest, which at first was curiosity, and later became serious. She told him that there was another offer on Domino and that we were more than welcome to come see the boat in person once they reached St. Petersburg, Florida in April. Marie also told us to do our research and see if there is something else out there, better fitting for us. So we did.

We talked about how we could afford this yacht life. After all, we were still paying some mortgages, car payments, and credit cards, among other things. Buying a boat, like a car, is not an investment, so we had to decide if it would be worth spending so much money on something we wanted to try and weren’t sure the kids and I would like. We threw out ideas left and right and finally decided to refinance our townhouse to get some cash equity for the down payment and future payments, fuel, tools and parts, emergency equipment, etc. There were so many thoughts running through our minds and our mouths that we both were up well past midnight talking and sharing more ideas. With our 3 kids (Bear- 9 years old, Moose- 6, and Roo- 4) being asleep for more than 4 hours already, we had to get to bed- they’d be waking up in no time!

One of my biggest wonderings was- How are we supposed to take 3 tiny humans with us and live on a boat for an extended period of time?! We had managed to do this fine in our camper and on road trips, but we were not in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles and miles of ocean with kids who eat next-to-nothing. I started reading and researching and found that traveling the world with kids for years at a time is not actually as uncommon as I had believed. There is a whole community of families with young kids who live on boats and cruise the oceans. A lot of them homeschool their kids and have had great success with it! I decided I was up for the challenge as long as I didn’t have to teach anything beyond middle school. That gives us 4 years.

With such exciting news, we both agreed not to talk about this new possibility in front of our kids, so as not to get their hopes up. We also didn’t want to alarm either of our families and cause unnecessary worry and fear. Moving into the next few weeks, when no one was around, all we could do was talk about a new power yacht catamaran listing Ben had found, weigh its pros and cons, and compare it to Domino. (Of course, there were a few slips here and there with the kids, but we managed to cover them up and quickly move on- no questions asked.)

Passagemaker is a magazine that Ben subscribed to several years ago, that I had secretly been recycling (for many months!) before he knew it came in the mail. I didn’t want him to get his heart set on anything and then start talking about buying a random boat, but look at us now, doing just that. When the March issue came in February, it was the first time I brought it in and actually started reading it myself. There were several articles about The Great Loop, including a family with 2 kids who had just sold their house, bought a yacht, and decided to cruise the loop.

I never thought I’d be a blogger. In fact, I still don’t consider myself to be one. This is just my journal of our journey that I’m sharing with all of you!