Let the Cat(amaran) Out of the Bag

In Ben’s communications with Marie, he found out that the broker’s contract would end on February 12th because they had decided to bring Domino back to Florida to try and sell there. So, on February 13th, we sent an email with an offer to the owners. It seemed like we were waiting forever and had not heard from Marie. I was starting to get worried that something had happened on their travels from Mexico to Florida. Ben finally got ahold of her and she told him that Domino was sold on the 11th. Although we were sad, we knew that didn’t mean our dreams wouldn’t become reality, we just knew Domino wasn’t meant for us and we had to keep looking. So, our search continued…

Around February 18th, Ben contacted a broker about a power cat he found that was recently sold, but had questions about the boat and information about the sale. The broker answered and said he works for free as a buyer’s broker, and if we were interested, we should send him what we’re looking for in our purchase. He gets paid commission from the sale (paid by the seller) when a deal closes.

Ben sent specs and the broker sent us this boat that is currently in Mexico with damage to the top outside part (not the part in the water) from banging into a post in a hurricane. The current owners bought it in 2020, are the broker’s friends, bought a house in Mexico, and are thinking of selling their yacht. It isn’t listed. We could potentially put in an offer without them listing it, not competing with other offers in the current seller’s market. One owner wanted to sell it because they haven’t used it in a year. His wife loves the yacht and may not want to part with it quite yet. So, we wait again...

Knowing that we weren’t going to be able to just put an offer in on any boat, sight unseen, we decided that we’d like to see the boats we were interested in, just to get an idea. We created a Boat Tour road trip that would have us stop along the way at 7 different boats- all different makes and/or years, so we could find out what we liked, what we didn’t like, and what we thought we’d need and the things we could do without.

We decided to plan our trip over my Spring Break. To travel close to 5,000 miles in 9 days or less would require leaving our children with their grandparents. We reluctantly told them about our big, financially irresponsible decision. That was of course met with uncountable, “Did you think about…?” and “What about…” and “How will you…?” questions, not to mention the “Well the kids have to wear life jackets the whole time,” comments. The cat had been let out of the bag.

Our journey would take us from Colorado to Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida to see potential boats before returning back home. We assured our families that we would not be purchasing a boat on this trip- it was strictly to find out what we liked.

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!