Our Dream
Our Why
We thought we might take a moment to explain ourselves to help shed some light on why two well-adjusted people (in our opinion) have decided to uproot their established & comfortable lives for a nomadic lifestyle. And, who knows, maybe we will inspire someone else to do the same.
Also, let's be real - this page is really for our friends any family (hi mum and dad!) as I think there are a few folks out there still scratching their heads.
Our first boat
The first part of our journey into sailboat life actually started with the plan to buy an engagement ring.
We had been talking about how it felt like getting married was the natural next step for us, and Jeff had also been talking about wanting a sailboat for a few months. While we were having brunch at one of our favorite spots on the water, a classic sailboat went by with a kid swinging from it's wooden mast. It looks so peaceful and magical. After seeing that, Claire was in.
In 2021, Jeff found a neglected 30 year old O'Day 272. We unanimously decided that buying an engagement ring instead of something that provided both experiences and a lifestyle was a stupid way to spend money.
The O'Day was our starter boat and a way to see if we enjoyed the lifestyle. She was a real fixer upper and we have a solid mix of horror and fun stories from owning her.
Thanks to our experience on the O'Day we felt confident enough to charter a boat in the Whitsundays, Australia and trialed living aboard for a longer stint of time. The result was that we were hooked, but still not all-in.
We did life "by the book"
In 2022 we built a custom house in a planned community in Florida, called Nocatee. It is a wonderful place to raise kids and enjoy family life.
The community is like something out of a movie - giant water parks, walking trails, multiple sport courts, dog parks, community events... the list goes on. Grocery stores, restaurants, doctors, banks, and more, are all within minutes of everyone's homes. Golf cart parking is in a better location than disabled parking spots. The beach is a 15 minute drive away.
We thought we had it all - a new & beautiful house in a wonderful location, established careers, healthy kids, nice cars, a golf cart, and a small sailboat in St. Augustine to enjoy on the weekends.
But, it wasn't for us. We feel like our days were spent simply surviving the perpetual grind. We started to question what was really important to us, what brought us joy, and started to assess what would make us feel like we were living our own version of a "rich life".
It was only while sailing and being on the water that we truly experienced the feeling of freedom from the cares of the world, were less stressed, and more present.
The search began
In April of 2023, we did a week long charter on a 43' Neel trimaran in the British Virgin Islands for Claire's birthday. One of our mornings was spent in White Bay on Guana Island - Jeff unexpectedly needed to work and attend some video meetings. We had a moment of panic hoping the internet connection was good enough and all would go well. It was during this trip that we realized we were ready to commit to full-time life on a boat, and we would be able to keep our 9-5 jobs. It wouldn't be as comfortable as on the trimaran we just chartered, but we could totally make it work on a monohull of the right size and configuration.
We began the search for our next boat. For months we spent hours every night looking at boats online, doing research on different kinds of boats, and the weekends were spent driving all over Florida to look at them. We searched high and low for a boat - we looked at hundreds of boats online and dozens of boats in person. Many different makes of coastal cruisers, center consoles, blue water boats, classic boats - you name it, we probably considered it. We climbed up and down so many ladders of boats that were on the hard, and shook the hand of so many brokers.
We started to put offers in and were beat out by competing offers. Boats were selling faster than they had in a years. The market was competitive and we thought it would be at least a year, if not more, until we found the right boat for us at a price we could afford.
We reached the end of our rope. At about the same time that we decided to pause on looking for a boat and pick it up again in a few months, a boat came up for sale on Facebook Marketplace.
It was an exhausting experience but it gave us the confidence and knowledge of knowing what kind of layout and boat we would be comfortable living on.
As soon as we walked onto our Hunter, we knew it was the boat for us. It didn't tick all our boxes (no boat did), but it ticked more than any other had, and instantly felt like home.
By the end of July 2023, we owned a 2001 Hunter 460. It also happened to be 1100 nautical miles away - in Rhode Island.
And so, the adventure of transitioning to full-time liveaboard life began!
Why not wait until you retire?
We get a lot of questions about why we are willing to give up the comforts of land life, and why we are doing this now.
We are not Catholic, but Pope Paul VI really said it best:
Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.
Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Our pockets are not as lined as they could/should have been by now, and our stomachs a bit rounder from indulging in dessert and wine - but our photo album and memories are evidence that we are living life to the limit.
We strive to set an example to lean into an opportunity to do something that you feel passionate about doing, and not be afraid to take risks. Our kids are all a little older now so the time we have left with them visiting us for longer periods is dwindling, and we have only a limited amount of time left with them before they move on with their own lives. It took a lot of strategizing to figure out a way to balance going after our dream of the liveaboard life before we got much older, and also do right by our kids.
During our search for a boat, we heard countless stories of people who had a dream of living on a boat, but never achieved their goal due to health reasons (either themselves or somebody else). We didn't want that to be our story.
We could have passed up the opportunity to buy a boat now and waited until we could afford our dream boat.
We could have not leaned into the challenge of sailing down the East Coast with no offshore experience on a boat we were only just getting to know.
We could have waited another year for our eldest daughter to graduate high school so we weren't juggling finances and logistics of owning a big boat & home.
Work was the busiest it had ever been for both of us.
It wasn't ideal timing for any of it.
But if we had waited - we might not have had the right opportunity come up to buy a boat when we originally planned to. Or worse, what if we waited and then life changed to such a degree that we never got to do it at all?
We know this won't be our lifestyle forever, but for now, this feels right for us. It will provide us with so many amazing memories, unforgettable experiences, and make the most of the time we have with the kids when we are all together.
And, as it turns out, buying a boat in Rhode Island was somehow meant to be. We probably would have never bothered to sail that far up north, but ended up falling in love with the New England area, and plan to spend more summers there in the future.
Our advice is: Don't wait to start living. Get after it!